58 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [Feb., 



cline for three years past. Gentlemen, we beseech you turn 

 your thoughts towards its interests, or you must prepare crape. 



MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETIESs, 



^A(''hat Dr. James thought of the Brooklyn meeting of 

 the American Microscopical Society. 7— Did you ever leave 

 business requiring your personal presence, leave comfortable, 

 and cool officer and apartments, and travel a thousand miles 

 in crowded, stuffy cars in the very height of the dogdays, 

 actuated by a sense of duty and a desire to meet old friends, 

 and in their companionship to undertake congenial scientific 

 studies and investigations — did you ever do this and arrive 

 at your destination soiled and dirty, tired and fagged out, but 

 buoyed up with anticipation of the treat to come, and then 

 repair to the tristing place only to find most of the friends 

 whom you longed to see, absent, no arrangements, or very 

 imperfect ones, made for the reunion that you were to attend, 

 and everything at odds and ends ? If you have, you know 

 how I felt on arriving. 



The 15th annual meeting of the American Microscopical So- 

 ciety, was in rnost respects a complete failure, redeemed only by 

 efforts of a few of the faithful whose ardor neither summer's 

 heat, the discomforts of railroad travel and hotel life, nor even 

 "hard times" can allay. At whose door the failure lies, I will not 

 attempt to discuss. It cannot rightfully be attributed to any 

 person or any particular circumstance, but rather to a concaten- 

 ation of circumstances, all tending to the one end. 



Owing to the lack of notice through the usual channels, the 

 pharmaceutical, medical and microscopical journals, few were 

 aware that the meeting would commence on Monday morning 

 (instead of Tuesday, as has been the invariable custom hitherto) 

 and consequently when the hour for opening came, there was 

 only a handful, scarcely a corporal's guard, of members present. 

 These found that absolutely no preparations for the meeting 

 had been made. In the general arrangements for the meeting 

 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a 

 place for the members had been allotted, it is true, but no 

 place was provided for the display of new optical instruments 



