The Microscope. 85 



Staining in toto offers the advantage of great saving of time when a 

 large number of sections are to be made and mounted, and for serial 

 sections, where the relation of cells and parts are to be studied rather 

 than cell- structure, it is undoubtedly superior 'to the method of stain- 

 ing each section separately ; but when cell -structure is to be 

 observed, or only a few slides are to be made, the method of stain- 

 ing each section separately is, in general, better, as the staining is 

 under more perfect control. When the paraffin or celloidin 

 methods are used, the best way, when staining each section sepa- 

 rately, is to immerse the sections cemented to the slides, in the stain, 

 contained in a beaker, or wide-mouthed bottle. 



The slides can be removed and the sections examined from time 

 to time, to note the progress of the staining. The stains are quite 

 powerful, and act upon tissues hardened in Miiller's fluid or chromic 

 acid quite quickly, much more rapidly, in my experience, than borax 

 carmine, and about as quickly as Kleinenberg's hsematoxylin. They 

 give excellent resiilts in photo-micrography by lamp-light, owing to 

 the sharp nuclear definition and slight staining of the other 

 tissue elements. I have never used them in photographing by 

 sunlight, but have no doubt they will work as well by it as when a 

 lamp is used. 



Fort Douglas, Utah. 



PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES 



SAN FRANCISCO MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. 



I HE regular meeting of this Society was held November 9th, 

 -*- and was well attended; President Ferrer in the chair, and 

 C. P. Bates Secretary p?'o tern. 



A sample of Mono lake water was handed in by Dr. Mouser and 

 was referred to Mr.Payzant for determination of crustaceans living 

 in it. 



The paper of the evening was by Mr. Henry G. Hanks, of San 

 Francisco, concerning California rock salt; as follows: 



Some months ago I received some fine specimens of rock salt 

 from Mr. J. S. Cook, of San JBernardino county, which I found very 

 interesting, and at the same time I was impressed with the import- 

 ance of such salt to our State and to the Pacific coast. But press of 

 other business caused me to lay the matter aside for future consider- 

 ation. Lately my attention has again been called to this very inter- 



