32 THE MICROSCOPE. 



to be able to stain the "bacilli" by a process simple enough; but 

 why should he use an aqueous solution of vesuvin ? Vesuvin is the 

 idocrase of mineralogy, a worthless crystalline stone, difficult to 

 procure away from where it occurs in nature ; and an aqueous solu- 

 tion of it would be about equal to an aqueous solution of quartz or 

 of broken glass. 



Since the discovery of Koch, nearly every person who has a 

 microscope has been looking for those '•bacilli," and have generally 

 failed in seeing them, probably because they took their material 

 from well-marked cases, where the fat had mostly disappeared. 

 From such cases, with great care, we have prepared numerous 

 slides, after Baumgarten and Ehrlich ; but not having vesuvin, have 

 not tried the process of Koch, and have been disappointed in seeing 

 the "bacilli" in every instance. We have seen white lines, or " rods 

 that sometimes branched," in specimens prepared after Baumgarten's 

 process ; but when viewed under a high power in a good light, the 

 rods or lines become ragged and were resolved into white glass. 

 which showed through minute flows or cracks in the desiccated 

 sputa. — Cin. Med. News. 



Search for "Atlantis" with the Microscope. — Under 

 this heading Dr. A. Geikie reviews a paper by the Abbe Renard 

 " On the Petrology of St. Paul's Rocks," an inland nearly on the 

 equator, and about 500 miles east of the South American coast: 



"Are these rocks the last enduring remnant of 'Atlantis ' — a 

 continent that has otherwise disappeared, or are they portions of a 

 volcanic mass like the other islands of the same ocean ? To those 

 who have not noted the modern progress of geological inquiry, it 

 may seem incredible that any one should propose to solve this 

 problem with the microscope. To seek for a supposed lost conti- 

 nent with the help of a microscope may seem to be as sane a pro- 

 ceeding as to attempt to revive the extinct Ichthyosaurus with a box 

 of lucifer-matches. Yet in truth the answer to the question whether 

 the St. Paul's Rocks are portions of a once more extensive land 

 depends upon the ascertained origin of the materials of these rocks, 

 and this origin can only be properly inferred from the detailed 

 structure of the materials, as revealed by the microscope. The 

 importance of microscopical examination in geological research, so 

 urgently pressed upon the notice of geologists for some years past. 



