138 THE MICROSCOPICAL NEWS. 
great, both in a physical and mental point of view. In the first 
place, it greatly improves the sense of touch, for the manipulations 
required in the preparation and mounting of objects, and in 
handling the microscope generally, cannot but greatly develop the 
delicacy of that sense. Again, accuracy of vision is greatly 
improved. When a person first looks through a microscope 
objects appear hazy and indistinct, but after a time he sees what is 
pointed out to him, or what he finds written about the specimen 
under observation, and by degrees he is able to observe and 
describe things for himself till, as in the case of the accomplished 
microscopist, he is enabled to unravel the most complicated 
structures and organisms. All this time his powers of observation 
are being greatly strengthened, and he is undergoing a course of 
mental discipline which he will find of the greatest value to him in 
the ordinary affairs of life. I can imagine no work better calculated 
to make a man careful and thoughtful; he will constantly be dis- 
covering fresh facts, and he will be constantly compelled to rectify 
those already observed. From these considerations I think our 
practical friends must allow that microscopical work is attended 
with material advantages, though I know the thoroughly practical 
man is very hard indeed to convince. 
NOTES AND QUERIES: 
AS we wish to relieve ourselves of all purely 
business transactions in connection with the Journal, 
subscribers are kindly requested to pay the amount 
of their subscriptions to Messrs. Brook & Chrystal, 
11, Market-street, Manchester. 
ALL matter intended for publication must be sent before the 12th 
of each month to the Editor, Mr. George E. Davis, The 
Willows, Fallowfield, Manchester. 
Fish Hatcuinc.—Professor Cossar Ewart, in the last of a series 
of lectures on ‘ Fishes for Food,” in the hall of the Museum of 
Science and Art, at Edinburgh, referred more particularly to salmon. 
The lecturer described Howieton hatcheries and breeding ponds, 
near Stirling, where provision was made for hatching 2,400,000 
eggs, and where gg per cent. survived the process. The fish in the 
ponds eat three horses ina week. The lecturer strongly deprecated 
having the hundreds of acres of water lying barren when they might 
