38 



THE AMERICAN MONTHLY 



[February, 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



Breakage of Slides ix the Mail. 



To THE Editor. — Cannot some of 

 your readers suggest the probable cause 

 of the breakage of many slides in the 

 mails, and propose some method for their 

 safe transmission, thus promoting a freer 

 exchange of microscopical preparations 

 among preparers, with a consequent in- 

 crease and diffusion of microscopical 

 knowledge ? So great is the percentage 

 of breakages as in some instances to 

 amount almost to a prohibition of ex- 

 changes. Some of the slide-boxes are 

 as much crushed in the mails as if run 

 over by the wheels of a baggage truck or 

 wagon. Others have received a shivering 

 blow upon one corner. Now ordinary 

 mail packages are limited to four pounds 

 in weight ; but public documents passing 

 through the mails are not restricted 

 within any given limits, and some of 

 them, single volumes, weigh thirteen 

 pounds each. Glass slides can scarcely 

 be expected to withstand such missiles, 

 when the mail bags are hurled from the 

 mail wagons upon stone sidewalks, or 

 from postal cars to the platform. 



Double boxes are no safeguard, for 

 while the boxes receive not so much as 

 a scar, the opener finds only a mass of 

 broken glass. Does not some over-zeal- 

 ous post-office official open the boxes, as 

 he has a perfect right to do, discover writ- 

 ing on the labels, search for contraband 

 communications thereon, and in his dis- 

 gust at the fruitlesness of his superflu- 

 ous zeal, replace the slides with cells in 

 contact, and packing half left out ? The 

 Micro-cabinet Postal Club have de- 

 vised a kind of box which renders 

 the transmission of slides through the 

 mails quite possible ; but such boxes are 

 too expensive for the private exchanger, 

 particularly when the boxes are not re- 

 turned, and the construction of each box 

 means the preparation of just so many 

 less slides. The profits upon micros- 

 copical goods are excessive enough, but 

 if in addition to this, the percentage of 

 breakages of shdes in transit by mail in- 

 creases in the ratio it has done for the 

 past year, exchanges must soon be con- 

 fined not to preparers of good work, but 

 to possessors of purses plethoric enough 

 to bear the draft of express charges upon 

 every slide sent out. M. A. B. 



Longmeadow, Mass. 



[No one can doubt that the breakage of 

 slides in the mails is quite unnecessarj'. 

 We hear no complaints about it in Eng- 

 land, where there are no senseless restric- 

 tions upon exchanges of specimens of 

 natural history, such as we have to con- 

 tend with here. Our own experience is 

 that slides can be sent to certain places 

 without being damaged, while on other 

 routes the boxes are unmercifully smashed. 

 We can send to Ohio or California with- 

 out fear of damage, but two successive 

 packages sent to Albany, packed precise- 

 ly like others sent elsewsere, were un- 

 necessarily smashed somewhere on the 

 way. We do not pretend to know why 

 this should be so, but we do know that 

 any package reasonably well put up and 

 sent by registered mail, will reach its des- 

 tination uninjured. It is, therefore, quite 

 unnecessary that slides should be injured 

 in the mails to the extent mentioned by 

 our correspondent. — Ed.] 



MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETIES. 



The Syracuse Society recently held a 

 meeting at which an interesting address 

 was delivered by Dr. E. R. Maxson, 

 entitled "The Microscopy of Nutrition." 

 The address is too long for reproduction 

 here ; but the concluding words will in- 

 dicate its general nature : — 



"Thus the microscope aids us in under- 

 standing the various changes produced in 

 food undergoing the digestive and nutri- 

 tive processes, as well as enables us to 

 examine the various secretions which 

 either aid in, or are accessory to, a 

 healthy performance of these processes. 

 It aids us to discover not only the ele- 

 ments of the waste products in a state of 

 health, but also the various abnormal 

 waste products in diseased conditions, 

 constituting important diagnostic indica- 

 tions of health, and of the various dis- 

 eased conditions, as well as enabling us 

 to comprehend more clearly the nutritive 

 process. 



At a meeting of the Fairfield (Iowa) 

 Microscopical Club, held Nov. 17th, the 

 following officers were elected : Prof. Al- 

 bert McCalla, President; Dr. T. James, 

 Vice-president; J. F. Clarke, Secretary; 

 Dr. R. H. Hufford, Treasurer. 



At a meeting of the Rochester Acad- 

 emy OF Sciences, held Jan. 8th, Mr. H. 



