196 



THE AMERICAN MONTHLY 



[October, 



of the knife. The potato is carefully 

 cut and the matter containing the 

 germs spread over the cut surfaces. 

 Then the potato, which must be care- 

 fully handled by a hand immersed in 

 corrosive sublimate mixture, is placed 

 on a blotter under a glass dish. The 

 hand that touches the potato must be 

 allowed to come in contact with 

 nothing else until the operation is 

 finished. Bacteria thus carefully 

 planted will grow amazingly. 



Professor H. L. Smith then spoke 

 on ' Some Formulas for Highly Re- 

 fracting Media for Mounting,'* and 

 described a simple instrument for 

 testing homogeneous immersion flu- 

 ids. (See page i8i.) 



Dr. L. M. Eastman then read a 

 paper on ' Fatty Infiltration of the 

 Liver,' which was discussed. 



A paper by Professor W. A. Rog- 

 ers, *• The Measurements of Eight 

 Rowland's Gratings at 63° Fahr.' was 

 read by title. Prof. Burrill presented 

 a paper on ' Uredineae of Illinois.' 



A paper by Mr. Gundlach, ' Im- 

 mersion Objectives,' was read by Mr. 

 H. A. Turner, and Professor Kelli- 

 cott read by title a paper on 'Some 

 Fresh-Water Infusoria, with Descrip- 

 tions of a Few Species Regarded as 

 New.' 



On the third day Professor S. H. 

 Gage made some remarks on the 

 blood-corpuscles of Necturns^ which 

 led to some ' discussion. Two pa- 

 pers by Dr. M. L. Holbrook, 'First 

 Development of Muscle in Embryos of 

 Chicken and Man,' and 'Studies on 

 the Development of Cartilage in the 

 Embryos of Chicken and Man,' were 

 read by title. Dr. A. H. Tuttle spoke 

 briefly on tumors in the mammary 

 gland of the lower animals. Mr. Dut- 

 ton, of Chicago, made a short speech 

 in regard to the need of a publication 

 devoted to microscopic subjects, and 

 oflered the following resolution : — 



Resolved^ That a committee be ap- 

 pointed by the chair to report upon 

 the advisability of publishing a quar- 

 terly microscopic journal, to be pub- 



* See this Journal, current volume, p^ge i6i. 



lished by the American Society of 

 Microscopists. 



The idea involved in this resolution 

 did not seem to be regarded favorably 

 by many of the members, and it was 

 lost, although the vote was close. 



A committee was appointed whose 

 duty it was to select names for officers 

 of the society for the ensuing year 

 and report to a subsequent meeting. 



The afternoon was taken up with 

 the working session at Le Grande 

 Rink. Perhaps we can do no better 

 than to quote directly from the Plain 

 Dealer the account of this meeting, 

 which, although not strictly such as 

 'our special correspondent' would 

 write, is sufficiently suggestive of 

 what was to be seen : — 



' It is not the purpose of this article 

 to treat of the exhibits for the benefit 

 of microscopists alone but to publish 

 matters of interest to the laity as well. 

 At one table were some wonderful 

 micrometers. Rulings away up be- 

 yond the 150,000th of an inch were 

 shown. One man. Professor Rogers 

 of Cambridge, has won a wide repu- 

 tation for the accuracy of his rulings 

 of standards of fine measure. Dr. 

 Fell,of Bufialo. showed a platino-irid- 

 ium plate that had been ruled and 

 adopted as the standard of micro- 

 scopic measurement. The unit of 

 measure is the millimetre, which on 

 the plate is divided and subdivided 

 until a pow^erful microscope is re- 

 quired to see the delicate lines. This 

 plate, which looks so vakieless to the 

 uninitiated, is so highly prized that 

 it is allowed to go out of the hands 

 of Dr. Fell, who is treasurer of the 

 American Society, only upon a reso- 

 lution of the society. It is proposed 

 to secure copies of the delicate meas- 

 ure in the future as soon as possible. 

 There are not five men in the world 

 who could prepare even an approxi- 

 mate duplicate, the making of which 

 requires the most delicate machinery 

 and carefully prepared metals. An 

 extremely cold or hot day would 

 make a vast difference with a standard 

 not prepared with the utmost care. 



