186 THE MICROSCOPE. 
substage of the microscope. The analyzer consists of two wedges 
of spar, mounted in a tube which fits on the eyepiece. As the upper 
end of this need not be larger than the pupil of the eye, the length 
of the prism may be considerably reduced, and still keep the bottom 
end large enough to collect all the rays passing through the eye- 
piece. 
MitS GC Bie L ANE O.US8 
SrecracuLar Cuemistry.*—At the banquet recently held ky the 
congress of German chemists, some novel scientific diversions were 
exhibited. Among them, one in particular attracted special 
attention. Hoffmann, of Cologne, gave a short lecture enumerating 
the difficulties experienced by students in remembering the consti- 
tution of organic compounds, and proposed an original method of 
fixing the formule in their memory. 
A ballet then commenced, in which the corypheés, dressed in 
various colors, represented the different atoms. Under the direction 
of the professor, the atoms grouped themselves in different attitudes, ~ 
representing the chemical compounds and their reactions. Specially - 
noteworthy were the composition of benzol, and anilin and its 
derivatives. On the formation of fuschine, or any of the coloring 
matters, brilliant lights illuminated the groups. The representation 
terminated in the explosion of one of the substances. This 
“excelsior ballet ’’ was the crowning event of the evening. 
RECREATIONS OF THE Microscopr.—If, reader, you have ever 
looked through a solar microscope at the monsters in a drop of 
water, perhaps you have wondered to yourself how things 
so terrible have been hitherto unknown to you. You have felt 
a loathing at the limpid element you hitherto deemed so 
pure. You have half fancied that you would cease to be a water- 
drinker ; yet, the next day, you have forgotten the grim life that 
started before you, with its countless shapes, in that teeming globule; 
and, if so tempted by your thirst, you have not shrunk from the 
lying crystal, although myriads of the horrible Unseen are mangling, 
devouring, gorging each other, in the liquid you so tranquilly imbibe. 
So is it with that ancestral and master element called Life. Lapped 
in your sleek comforts, and lolling on the sofa of your patent con- 
science, when, perhaps for the first time, you look through the glass 
of science upon one ghastly globule in the waters that heave around, 
*L’ Union Medicale. 
