PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 249 



he got his fourth stage in the development of the salmon when the 

 first stage of the frog was observable. In the salmon, a few clays 

 after the yelk mass had undergone segmentation, the form of eye- 

 ball and the involution of the eye-ball was very rapid. So also the 

 after changes were intensely rapid. He had seen a little head, about 

 the size of a pin's head, which began to emerge as the egg burst, and 

 then the brain vesicles took their proper form. He would say one 

 word in reference to the salmon. It was much nearer to the reptile 

 or bird than the frog. The frog was very gradually develojied, was 

 of a very low type, and yet was so ambitious that it underwent meta- 

 morphoses near the parts of the face which brought it near to the 

 mammal. The salmon was about half-way between the ganoid fishes 

 and the perch. It seemed to form a much better connecting link 

 between birds and reptiles than the frog did. 



Mr. Stewart said he understood the President to say that he first 

 used spii'its to harden the i^reparations, and then put them into chromic 

 acid. He (Mr. S.) had made a few experiments on reagents lately. 

 He put a piece of brain into chromic acid, and in the course of a few 

 weeks it had become completely vacuolated and hardened into a 

 spongy-looking mass. It struck him that it would be well to recog- 

 nize the possibility of such changes occurring in the transfer from 

 alcohol to chromic acid. 



The President said, care must be taken not to keep the prepara- 

 tions too long in the chromic acid, as under such circumstances they 

 became very friable. 



Mr. J. Beck Avished to say a word or two in regard to a subject 

 which had come before the Fellows in the Journal of the Society. 

 There had been a review of a work purporting to be the ' Trans- 

 actions of the Microscopical Society of Chicago.'* He had promised 

 his friends there to take the earliest opportunity of informing the 

 Society that they had not the slightest connection with the publica- 

 tion in question. It was a mere printer's sjjcculation. He took the 

 opportunity also of bearing testimony to the deep interest shown in 

 microscopical research in America. The Americans displayed on this 

 subject the same energy which characterized them in all matters in 

 which they engaged. They made some very good instruments, and a 

 very large number of persons were interested in their practical use. 

 In a gi-eat many of the large cities of the States microscopical 

 societies flourished, and conducted their afiairs in a most admirable 



* Wc regret that, owing to our absence, Mr. Beck's remarks were left uncon- 

 tradicted. His statements contain a series of errors, and so far as any accuracy 

 pertains to them they are a mere repetition of what has been akeady in jjrint in 

 the Journal. In the iirst place, there has not been any statement made to the 

 eflect that the journal reviewed — which was most severely reviewed — had any 

 connection with the Chicago Society. In the next place, in our number for May 

 last we published a letter from the Corresponding Secretary of the State Micro- 

 scopical Society of Illinois (not of Chicago, as Mr. Beck has incorrectly expressed 

 it) thanking us for his knowledge of the journal in question, which he was igno- 

 rant of till our notice appeared. Finally, in our September number we gave a 

 full account of the nature of the ' Lens ' which Mv. Beck alluded to at the 

 October meeting. We regret being compelled to call attention to the matter, 

 but Mr. Beck's charge leaves us no alternative. — Ed. ' M. M. J.' 



