80 



THE AMERICAN MONTHLY 



[April. 



San Francisco, Cal. 



The annual meeting was held February 

 loth, when the President, Dr. Mouser, read 

 his annual address, expressing much satis- 

 faction in the condition and prospects of 

 the Society, and briefly reviewing the work 

 of the past year. 



The officers of the present year are : 

 President, S. M. Mouser; Vice-President, 

 E. J. Wickson ; Treasurer, A. M. Hickox ; 

 Corresponding Secretary, Charles W. 

 Banks ; Recording Secretary, A. H. Breck- 

 enfeld. 



At a meeting held February 24th, Mr. 

 Payzant showed the well-known but ever- 

 interesting spores oi EquisctitJii, and called 

 attention to the wonderful sensitiveness to 

 moisture possessed by the spirally-coiled 

 ' elators ' with which each spore is fur- 

 nished. 



A piece of wharf timber, completely rid- 

 dled by the perforations of 'Teredo navaliSy 

 the ship-worm, was shown by F. L. How- 

 ard, who read a short paper descriptive of 

 the structure and habits of this destructive 

 mollusc, and also of Lit)i>ioria tej-ebratis, 

 a marine crustacean of the order Isopoda. 

 The latter organism is almost as destruc- 

 tive to submerged timber as the teredo, 

 but is much smaller, its length being only 

 about one-sixth of an inch. It is of ash- 

 gray color, eyes black, each composed of 

 about seven ocelli, thorax 7-jointed, each 

 joint bearing a pair of short legs. It has 

 two pairs of jaws, and a pair of strong man- 

 dibles, used for boring the wood. When 

 touched or disturbed, the animal rolls itself 

 into a ball. Its method of boring differs 

 from that of the teredo. The latter bores 

 smooth cylindrical perforations, which be- 

 come lined with a calcareous incrustation. 

 These excavations are always made in the 

 direction of the grain of timber, and only 

 deviate from the course when an olDstacle 

 is met with, such as a hard knot, or the cal- 

 careous tube of a neighboring toredo. But 

 Limnoria appears to prefer cutting the tim- 

 ber across the grain. Living specimens of 

 both animals were shown to those present, 

 and were examined with much interest. 



The Recording Secretary stated that he 

 had brought a number of slides which he 

 proposed to show under the micro-polari- 

 scope. Briefly alluding to the nature of 

 polarized light, he drew attention to the 

 rapidly increasing employment of the po- 

 lariscope in microscopical research. 



Under his new ' universal ' binocular, 

 A. S. Brackett exhibited various prepara- 

 tions. 



At a meeting held March loth, a slide 

 of Spirogyra crassa, in fruit, was handed 



in by Mr. Breckenfeld, who stated that 

 Dr. Cooke, in his recently-published work 

 on ' Fresh-Water Algte,' gave .16 mm. as 

 the largest recorded diameter of the fila- 

 ments of this interesting species — the 

 largest of its genus. But in the slide 

 under consideration, careful measure- 

 ments showed the average diameter of 

 the filaments to be 1-150 of an inch 

 (=:.I7 mm.), while in many cases the 

 diameter exceeded .18 mm. The Cali- 

 fornia variety was, therefore, the largest 

 in the world, owing probably to ' our 

 glorious climate.' The plant was found 

 growing in a ditch near Napa. 



Under a Spencer dry 34^ -inch objective, 

 of 1 1 5°angle, were shown specimens of the 

 exquisite diatom, Cestodisciis snperbus, and 

 also the stria;, or markings on the valves of 

 No. 18, on MoUer'sprobe-platte of diatoms, 

 mounted in phosphorus. The latter dia- 

 tom was also shown with a Gundlach fifth. 

 The ' Improved Beck Microscope Lamp,' 

 just received by Dr. Selfridge, was exhib- 

 ited by him to the members present. It 

 has facilities for changing the direction, 

 angle, color, and intensity of the illumi- 

 nating beam, and seems in every way ex- 

 cellently adapted to the requirements of 

 the working microscopist. 



A number of objects were splendidly 

 shown with Dr. Stallard's fine one-twelfth- 

 inch oil immersion lens, of 1.43 numerical 

 aperture, made by Powell & Leland. 



At the meeting of March 24th, Mr. E. 

 H. Griffith, of Fairport, N. Y., was present. 

 His reception was very cordial, and the use 

 of the Society's rooms were tendered him 

 during his stay in the city. Mr. Griffith ex- 

 tended a warm in\itation to the San Fran- 

 cisco Society to attend the coming meeting 

 at Chatauqua, N. Y. 



Mr. Griffith presented to the Society a 

 handsome Griffith self-centering turn- 

 table. 



A slide of the fossil deposit at Barbadoes 

 was shown by Mr. Norris. 



A most interesting demonstration of the 

 capabilities of the oxy- hydrogen micro- 

 scope was then given by Mr. Edward W. 

 Runyon. The microscopical attachment 

 was of Mr. Runyon's own designing, and is 

 screwed to the front of the lantern. The 

 nose-piece, to which the objectives are at- 

 tached, slides on three polished steel rods, 

 as does also the stage with its substage, 

 and both can be clamped in any desired 

 position. The objectives used in the ex- 

 hibition were a half-inch and an inch by 

 Bausch & Lomb, and also a half-inch by 

 Gundlach. 



A. H. Breckenfeld, Rec. Seer. 



