254 
PROGRESS OF MICROSCOPICAL SCIENCE. 
a chemical and physical relationship, and the individual substances 
were quite distinct, and it seemed as though they were special secre- 
tions. There appeared to be no simple connection between the pro- 
duction of these various egg-pigments and the general organization of 
the birds, unless it were in the case of the Tinamous, in the shells of 
the eggs of many species of which occur an orange-red substance not 
met with in any other eggs, unless it were in those of some species of 
Cassowary. 
Thin Sections of the Traps of the Mesozoic Basin. — Professor Frazer 
made the following remarks before the Academy of Sciences of Phila- 
delphia, at its meeting on March 2, 1875: “The great mesozoic 
basin traverses York, Adams, Chester, and Montgomery Counties, in 
Pennsylvania, as well as New Jersey and New York, while detached 
portions are found in several of the New England States, in none of 
which are its characteristics more clearly defined than in Connecticut. 
During a recent visit to New Haven I had the privilege of examining 
the fine microscopic slides or thin sections which have been prepared 
by Mr. Dana from the traps of that region. It is of great interest to 
observe the striking resemblance of these rocks to our own from the 
same formation. To the eye, and even under the magnifying glass, 
they seem the same, whereas in fact they are of, at least, two different 
kinds. One kind, which has been described on several occasions 
before the Academy as that forming the Seminary Eidge near Gettys- 
burg, is a greenish-grey compact dolerite (projected by me on the 
screen by means of the gas microscope, at a previous meeting), which, 
under higher magnifying power, shows white tablets of plagioclastic 
felspar and green crystals of pyroxene, with some chrysolite (olirine). 
Far different is the rock which has been previously referred to as 
syenite, and which has an apparently similar representative near 
New Haven. Under the microscope, however, the coarse rock from 
New Haven, resembling the others from that locality in everything 
but texture, differs materially from the specimen from Gettysburg. 
Since my return home I have examined two or three other slides of 
the Gettysburg rock, and find no essential difference between them. 
Tney contain hornblende and quartz, the others do not. The con- 
stituents of the coarse rock from both States were pyroxenite, plagio- 
clase, magnetite, some chrysolite, some bictite, and rarely quartz.” 
Cancer of the Bones of the Head. — At a late meeting of the New 
York Pathological Society,* Dr. Jane way reported on Dr. Kipp’s 
specimen of cancer of the bones of the head, presented at the last 
meeting of the Society. On examining it by the microscope it was 
found to consist of trabecula; of connective tissue and lymphoid cells, 
varying from - 2 ^ 0 th to -g-nVo^ 1 °f an i nc h in diameter. These cells 
were arranged in long tubular processes. The inference was, that the 
cancer had its origin in the antrum, and from that extended to the 
other bones of the head mentioned in Dr. Kipp’s report. 
The Lymph of Small-pox. — At the meeting of the Linnean Society 
on the 1st of April, Dr. E. Klein gave an account of his microscopical 
* March 24, 1875. 
