THE MICROSCOPE. 197 



contains it. I can tell you in a minute how to make it"— and I 

 actually thought I could. 



"Well, Doc," (he grew very familiar all at once) "well, Doc, 

 if you do know and can tell me, you'll be doing a mighty big favor 

 to a poor fellow. He (that is the 'boss' chap) won't sell me the 

 secret at any price, and I would like mightily to have it." 



" Nothing easier," I answered, and proceeded to look in my 

 Index Rerum for Paste Eels. I found several references; but the 

 most promising was to the American Journal of Microscopy for 

 September, 1878, p. 210, "Paste Eels, How to Raise Them." When 

 I read it, I was not so confident as I had been. In fact, it quite took 

 the conceit out of me. 



The writer of this article states, in effect, that all sour paste 

 does not contain the eeis. That he had experimented a great deal 

 trying to raise the little creatures, and had never succeeded in get- 

 ting them unless he had some to start with. He once took a pot of 

 paste and placed it in the midst of several other pots that were 

 swarming with them, and left it there until it passed through all 

 stages of fermentation and decay, and not an eel showed itself in it. 

 He surmises, finally, that in those cases where eels had appeared 

 spontaneously in paste they were originally in the water used in 

 making it. This is in answer to a correspondent who inquires how 

 to raise paste eels. 



Now, having told my story, is there any reader of The Micro- 

 scope who can tell me the boss Fakir's secret ? He sells a fluid to 

 some of his agents, so my fakir tells me, which, when poured into 

 any rye paste, soon fills it with anguillulcz. 



Frank L. James, M. D., 



201 N. 6th Street, St. Louis, Mo. 



RESOLUTION OF AMPHIPLEURA BY SUN-LIGHT, 

 MIRROR-BAR CENTRAL. 



BY H. J. DETMERS, M. D. 



SOME time in the latter part of last winter, when I happened to 

 be at home, Professor Burrill came to me with a letter from 

 Professor Forbes, of Normal, stating that he, Professor Forbes, had 

 so excellent an objective, a new, homogeneous immersion -fe of 



