NOTICES OF MEETINGS. 17 
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pitted vessels ; they are most abundant in the central and harder parts of the 
root, and exist in bundles. The laticiferous vessels are to be observed in the 
cellular tissues, and distinguish chicory from most other roots ; they are much 
smaller in diameter than the pitted vessels. The woody fibre has no distinctive 
structure. 
The best plan to make oneself familiar with the structure of seeds, roots, &c., 
is to take slices or sections from different parts, and in different directions, with 
a sharp razor. Before examining a sample of ground coffee, &c., it should at 
least be boiled in water. This has two advantages ; first, it softens the tissue, 
and the particles can be flattened out thin by rubbing down with a penknife- 
blade or by gentle pressure on the covering glass; secondly, much of the 
colouring matter is got rid of. 
If chicory is suspected to be present, it is best brought out by boiling with 
water to which a little caustic potash or soda solution has been added. This 
extracts all or nearly all the colouring matter as well as the oil, and renders 
the coffee very transparent, in fact too transparent for its structure to be 
distinctly seen, but the pitted vessels of the chicory are rendered very apparent, 
and the characteristic cellular matter can still be readily observed. 
Dandelion coffee has been much advertised of late. The plant belongs to the 
same natural order as the chicory, and at first sight its structure might be confused 
with that of the latter. On closer examination the vessels are seen to be not pitted 
but spiral, and the ends of the filaments are often observed free from the rup- 
tured ends of the vessels. ‘The vessels are generally of the same diameter 
throughout, and the lines, where the cells have united to form the vessels, are 
faint. In the pitted vessels of chicory the cells are united more or less ob- 
liquely, and the lines of separation are very distinct. No cells containing 
granular matter like those found in chicory exist in the dandelion. Several 
makers guarantee their so-called dandelion coffee to consist only of roasted 
dandelion root, but the adulteration to which it is most liable is that of chicory, 
and the essayist stated he had met with one sample of reputed dandelion coffee 
which consisted of coarsely ground chicory alone. 
Coffee contains no starch, and if beans, &c. (which contain starch), be sus- 
pected, a good plan is to boil, and to the clear, cold liquid add a solution of 
iodine, when, if it is present, a deep blue colour of iodide of starch will be 
produced. 
The paper was well illustrated with microscopic drawings of chicory and 
coffee prepared by a process similar to that described in our Notes and Queries, 
and also by specimens of raw material, as well as sections which were exhibited 
under several microscopes. After the paper was read, the meeting resolved 
itself into the usual conversazione. 
NOTTINGHAM LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 
On Wednesday evening, October 13th, Mr. I. H. Jennings, President of the 
Science Section, gave an address on ‘* The Preparation of Rock Sections for the 
Microscope,” of which the following is an abstract :— 
Nearly fifty years ago a professional preparer of microscopic slides first cut 
sections of fossil plants, for the purpose of displaying their structure. The 
process did not appear to attract any attention at the time, for it was not until 
long after that sections of minerals and rocks were prepared by Mr. Sorby, who 
introduced his method to the notice of the German petrologists, who not only 
recognised its value at once, but in a short time became most ardent and 
successful students of this branch of petrology. In England geologists sneered 
at the idea of examining rocks with the microscope. What could be seen in a 
structureless pitchstone or a black mass of basalt! Mountains should not be 
looked at through microscopes ! 
At the present day geologists generally acknowledge the value of the micros- 
cope as a geological tool ; for when applied to the igneous rocks it reveals not 
