1895.] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 325 



held from January 3 to 10, 1897, under tlie presidency o.^ pro- 

 fessor Livesedge. Professor T. J. Parker is chairman of the 

 section of Biology. 



A New Microscopical Monthly. — We have received the 

 Zeitschrift far angenmndte Mikroskopie, octavo, 32 pages, \)Y\ce ten 

 marks ($2.50), edited hy G. Marpmann, Leipzig. It deals 

 chiefly with the technique of microscopy and partly with its 

 scientific results. 



The Internal Structure of Calamite Leaves. — Mr Hick 



of the Manchester Society examined some very small leaves, 

 being those borne by the delicate ultimate branchlets, which 

 looked more like those of a well grown Chara. He found them 

 to be simple uni-nerved structures with a central, vascular 

 bundle arranged on the collateral type and surrounded by a 

 cortex in which can be distinguished an inn-r layer of cells 

 with black contents continuous with a similar layer in the twio- 

 and styled melasmatic tissue. He also found an outer thicker 

 layer of assimilating tissue. Surrounding the whole, he reports 

 a single layered epidermis, consisting of cells of uniform size, 

 with thickened outer wall. A transverse section of a leaf is 

 similar in outline to that of a- pine-needle. It is rounded 

 on the under surface and more or less flattened above with a 

 large median portrusion above the vascular strand. 



Heretofore, very little has been known about the leaf of the 

 Calamite. More was known about the root, stem and b irk. The 

 micrscopists of Manchester are being heard from continually 

 though they have absorbed their society into the Iviterary and 

 Philosophical Society and novv meet as a section of tbe larger 

 organization. 



Structure of the Spleen.— The anatomists have for a long 

 time desired some means for getting at the structure of this 

 organ and have been largely baffled in the'r efforts to preserve 

 parts of the spleen in the same condition in which they were 

 when the animal was alive. The changes which organs under- 

 go immediately after death — not to say during the process of 

 dying — were too long overlooked, and are not yet sufflciently 

 a[)preciated. Dr. Carlier has announced a method of overcom- 

 ing the difficulty, substantially as follows : He first gives the 

 animal an anaesthetic, paying especial attention to the complete- 



