1888.] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 17 



NOTES. 



Remittances by mail. — The arrival of many letters containing dollar bills and postal 

 notes reminds our publisher to say that the safety with which the United States mails 

 carry such letters is marvellous and almost perfect. No word has come from anyone 

 indicating the loss of a single letter by the way. Do your part right and you can trust 

 our mail service quite implicitly. But the following hints should be remembered : — 



1. Use much care in addressing your envelope, so that you make no mistake therein. 

 Be sure your own name or address is on the upper corner, so that the letter may, on no 

 account, go to the dead- letter office. 



2. If your envelope is more than 5^4 to 6 inches long, or than 3 to 3X inches wide, 

 or if it is of brittle paper, the strings of the postal clerks may cut or tear it, exposing to 

 view the enclosed money. Therefore, use small envelopes for this purpose. 



3. If your writing paper and envelopes are of thin materials, the enclosed money 

 can be seen by holding the latter between the eye and a strong light. Try it yourself 

 and see. 



4. If your dollar bill is an old one, it may have an odor perceptible through the en- 

 velope. Avoid this by perfumery or by using a new bill. 



5. A dollar postal note is of as much use to a thief as a dollar bill, each being pay- 

 able to bearer. Go to the expense and trouble of getting postal notes only for sums 

 less than one dollar. 



6. Post your letter yourself, observing for the second or third time that it is cor- 

 rectly addressed, well sealed and stamped. Note the exact date and hour of the day 

 you posted it, so that, in case of loss, you can report these items to the postmaster. 

 Such facts will go far towards catching thieves. 



7. In sending bank bills, request an acknowledgment by return mail, and if it does 

 not come, write again stating the time and circumstances of your mailing the first letter. 



8. If you feel any uneasiness about it, post a letter by a separate mail informing your 

 correspondent that you have sent such a letter, stating when and how. 



9. If your letter is received shortly before a mailing day of a periodical, its receipt 

 can be indicated by the change of date on your next wrapper, showing time to which 

 payment has been made. 



10. As so many subscribers to this Journal find it convenient to send postal notes 

 and dollar bills, notice is hereby given that every such letter will be acknowledged on 

 a postal card by the first return mail. If the postal does not reach you promptly, lose 

 no time in sending word. 



11. Checks on New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, and Chicago (which 

 are the onlv personal checks we can use without discount), drafts and money orders 

 do not need to be acknowledged by return mail, as they cannot be cashed by thieves. 

 Acknowledgment will be made by change of date on your next wrapper. 



12. In remitting money orders, checks, or drafts to a periodical, make them payable 

 not to any person by name, but to the periodical. Then any properly qualified repre- 

 sentative can collect them, and the regularly authorized person will not be annoyed by 

 finding his money order or draft payable to an absent person. We sometimes re- 

 ceive them payable to Mr. Hitchcock, who is in Japan, sometimes to the editor in Min- 

 nesota, and sometimes to the last year's business manager, and all such prove of much 

 inconvenience. 



Mr. E. O. Ulrich is perfecting a method of studying the systematic relations of the 

 fossil Bryozoa l)y means of sections, wherein it is hoped that sufficiently definite char- 

 acters can be found in the microscopic appearance of the cell to permit from it the specific 

 identification much more accurately than was possible by the mere naked eye observa- 

 tion of the fossil, even where it is a perfect specimen, and a method which will be appli- 

 cable to the study of worn specimens formerly useless. Prof. James, of Miami University, 

 Ohio, criticises this method, and thinks it is not possible to distinguish the species, or 

 even in many cases the genera, of bryozoa by the microscopic structure of the cell, that 

 being similar through a wide range of specifically different forms. 



A new botanical serial from the Clarendon Press, entitled the Annals of Bo /any, and 

 edited by Profs. Balfour, Vines, and Farlow, has recently published its first number. 

 The number contains four original articles on histological subjects, and in addition re- 

 views and record of current literature. 



