130 INSTITl'TE NOTES. 



Through the kindness of President T. Chalkley Palmer 

 and Secretary' B. M. Underhill the Institute has been given 

 the use, for an indefinite period, of a pair of microscopes. 

 These, together with the instruments aheady owned by the 

 Institute, make a very suitable equipment. The Institute 

 has also at its disposal a neat little chemical laboratory, with 

 a full set of reagents. 



Among the recent acquisitions to the Museum is a section 

 of an old wooden water pipe dug up in the streets of Phila- 

 delphia in 1909. This pipe was laid in the year 1800, and 

 despite a century under ground is in a good state of preserva- 

 tion. The bark is still intact in some places and the wood 

 shows few of the signs of decay. The section of pipe is 

 about a foot in diameter, with a hole some five inches in dia- 

 meter through the middle. 



The Library of the Institute has recently had added to it 

 several good works on microscopy, biolog}' and zoology. The 

 activity of the recently organized Section A has made these 

 purchases necessary. There is no standing Library Commit- 

 tee, but it is always the policy of the Institute to purchase 

 a desirable work when any member requests it. 



As an illustration of the amount of work required in the 

 preparation of a paper upon a scientific subject, the first 

 article in this number of the Proceedings is a good exam- 

 ple. To collect the data for such a subject it was necessary 

 for the author to read through the Century Dictionary. 



The lecture course for the past year has been a very suc- 

 cessful one. A number of well known scientists have lec- 

 tured before the Institute and some of these papers we hope to 

 have the pleasure of publishing in the Proceedings. 



ERR.^TUM : 

 Paj^e g(^. sixth line \'nn\\ {np — For "extremes" read "cxtrei^rt. 



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