PROGRESS OF MICROSCOPICAL SCIENCE. 149 



microscopic power would not sink to the bottom of his boxes iu three 

 days, and perhaps not even in three years. Furthermore the boxes 

 are not at all air-tight, as everyone who has studied Pettenkofer's 

 classical researches will know, and Dr. Tyndall's boxes are simply 

 wooden filters." But as he further admits that the boxes will at least 

 act as powerfully as cotton-wool in excluding particles, there is of 

 coui'se nothing more to be said. 



Oiu" conclusion cannot be drawn yet, as both sides are preparing 

 further experiments. But we think that Professor Tyndall has 

 thrown much light on the subject, and unquestionably he has come 

 out of the controversy with all the weight of scientific evidence and 

 philosophic gravity of discussion on his side, while Dr. Bastian has 

 done injury to his cause by adopting the well-known symptom of 

 defeat, " abuse of the plaintiff's attorney." 



TJie Evolution of Hcemoglohin. — Mr. Sorby, F.E.S., in a letter to 

 ' Nature ' (Feb. 17) states that the principal results of his recently 

 published paper* are contrary to what 'Nature' stated, that hfematin 

 is first met with in the bile of many pulmoniferous molluscs in an 

 abnormal state, quite unfit to serve the purposes of respiration, but 

 easily changed into the normal, which could, and probably does in 

 some cases, perform that function. Then in the blood of Planorbis we 

 have a solution of a hEeifioglobin, in which the haematin is combined 

 with an albuminous constituent coagulating at the low temperature of 

 45° C, and finally we come to the normal htemoglobin existing as red 

 corpuscles, containing an entirely different albuminous constituent, 

 coagulated at about 65° C. In all these changes in the condition of 

 the same fundamental radical, the oxygen carrier becomes of more and 

 more unstable character, and more fitted for the purposes of respira- 

 tion, as we advance from lower to higher types, as though advantage 

 had been taken of every improvement due to modified chemical or 

 physical constitution. 



Adioyi of certain Colouring Matters on the Tissues. — It seems that 

 this subject has been recently investigated by Herr L. Gerlach, of 

 Erlangen, an abstract of whose paper is given by the ' Medical 

 Eecord' (Jan. 15). It states that Herr Gerlach adopted the method 

 of saturating the tissues with this substance for days and even weeks 

 together ; the former experimenters, Heidenhain, Kupfer, Von Wittich, 

 and Thoma, only injected such a quantity of indigo carmine as re- 

 mained in the body for a comparatively short time. The author 

 injected indigo carmine into the lymph-sac of several frogs, and killed 

 them at intervals of two days, always renewing the injections. The 

 microscopic examination showed that the white blood-corpuscles are 

 capable of taking up indigo carmine. 



1. The first traces of this action ajipear on the third day after the 

 introduction of the colouring matter. After this time, both the 

 number of cells which contain the pigment and the quantity of pig- 

 ment in the individual cells increase. 



2. The cells of the connective tissue, e. g. of the tendons, take 



* ' Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science.' 



