'^84 The Microscope. 



Under its auspices there will be a series of weekly lectures, or rather 

 talks, at the Society's rooms, upon the local fauna and flora. These 

 lectures will be delivered by Mr. Samuel Garman, upon the reptiles, 

 of Massachusetts ; Mr. O. H. Scudder, on butterflies ; Dr. J. S. 

 Kingsley, on Crustacea; Mr. James Emerton, on spiders; Mr. William. 

 Brewster, on birds, and others not yet announced^ — Science. 



After a heavy shower in Washington recently, the gutters and 

 low places were covered with a deposit of fine, yellow powder, 

 Prof. Ward pronounced it vegetable pollen, which came from the 

 pine trees of the district. It was very light, and was carried into 

 the upper regions and washed out by the rain. Prof. Ward said: 

 " It is the male element of the pine trees, which usually shed their 

 pollen at this season. It consists of minute grains, like spores, and 

 to the naked eye looks like yellow dust, but, subjected to the micro- 

 scope, the grains have different shapes, which differ with the varieties 

 of pine. It is common wherever pine trees exist." — Science. 



Bacteria in Sea Air. — Moureau and Miquel have made micro- 

 scopic analyses of sea air at various places, and state, as the result of 

 their observations, that when the breezes come from the sea the air 

 is almost free from bacteria. When one hundred kilometres out at 

 sea the breezes coming from shore are also almost free from them, 

 thus proving that the sea is an insurmountable barrier to contagion. 

 On vessels making long passages it was noticed that although the 

 compartments were not entirely free from bacteria, they contained 

 about one hundred times less than in a Parisian home. — Med. and 

 Surg. Reporter. 



I hope that the microscope may not be relegated to the younger 

 members of our profession alone. It is an instrument for old age. 

 Ehrenberg worked with his microscope up to within a few days of 

 his death. The focussing accommodates the defects of vision. 

 Moreover, it is a comfort and solace to an aged physician to quietly 

 explore the mysteries of the unseen world he has been dealing with 

 microscopically during a long and laborious life. May it be a good 

 preparation for that endless life where we shall no longer see 

 through a glass darkly. — Dr. E. Cutter. 



Hugo de Vries suggests, in Nature, a method of preserving 

 such colorless plants as Monotropa in alcohol without their assuming 

 a brown color. "To 100 parts of common, strong alcohol add two 

 parts of the ordinary concentrated solution of hydrochloric acid of 

 the shops . " — Botanic Gazette. 



