72 PROGRESS OF MICROSCOPICAL SCIENCE. 



The Microscopic Examination of Cotton. — We have received a copy 

 of a paper which was read before the Cotton Brokers' Association of 

 Liverpool, by the Rev. H. H. Higgins, M.A., on this subject, which is 

 admirably illustrated with a series of twelve photographic microscopic 

 views of the fibre. Although tbere is not very much novelty in the 

 paper, still it is interesting, and to many instructive. The following 

 quotation which he gives from Barnes' work on ' The History of the 

 Cotton Manufacture of Great Britain ' is not without interest : — 

 " Bouelle, in the ' Memoirs of the French Academy of Sciences ' in 

 1750, and Dr. Hadley, in the ' Philosophical Transactions ' in 1764, had 

 contended that the mummy cloth of Egypt was cotton ; and so it was 

 esteemed to be till, in 1836, James Thomson, F.R.S., having obtained 

 from Belzoni various specimens of mummy cloth, determined to renew 

 the investigation. All other methods failing to atford a satisfactory 

 solution of the difficulty, he bethought himself of the microscope. 

 He was not, however, possessed of such an instrument, nor was he 

 accustomed to its use. Mr. Thomson therefore applied to his friend 

 Mr. Childern, who undertook to secure the good offices of Sir Everard 

 Home in prevailing on Mr. Bauer, a microscopist, to make the requi- 

 site examination. Thus a Fellow of the Royal Society, less than forty 

 years ago, found himself three removes from an authority competent 

 to resolve a question capable of being decided in a few moments by 

 the aid of a very ordinary microscope." The author sums up the 

 advantages of the microscope in the examination of cotton thus : — 

 " (1.) It may probably be found useful chiefly in deciding questions 

 of some difficulty : for example, in comparing various kinds of Surat, 

 or North American cottons. Where two samples are apparently equal 

 in value and suitability, the microscope may give a decided preference 

 to one of them ; and a decision thus formed would probably be justilied 

 by the manufacturer. It is not altogether improbable that the micro- 

 scope may lead to a more correct appreciation of some kinds of cotton 

 which may hitherto have been under-rated or over-rated. (2.) The 

 microscope may greatly facilitate and generalize the power of judging 

 cotton." 



Larvae in the Human Ear. — The 'Lancet' of Dec. 14, 1872, con- 

 tains an article on this subject which is of interest in connection with 

 the subject mentioned in the last ' H. M. J.' It appears that in 

 a recent number of the ' Archives of Ophthalmology and Otology ' — 

 a publication brought out simultaneously in English and German — ■ 

 Dr. Blake, of Boston, describes four cases of the occurrence of dip- 

 terous larvae in the human ear. In one of these cases the larva was 

 that of Muscida sarcophaga, and in another case that of M. lucilia, 

 which was probably also present in the fourth case. The presence of 

 these larva? is always associated with an otitis media purulenta, which 

 can hardly be wondered at if we bear in mind the nasty predilections 

 of the ordinary blow-fly. M. lucilia is oviparous ; from which may 

 be explained the fact that in the cases in which it was present only 

 a single larva was found, most of the eggs having been presumably 

 washed away by the fetid secretions from the ear. M. sarcophaga, 

 on the other hand, whose larva? were more numerous, five and four 



