336 



THE AMEKICA]^ MONTHLY 



[December^ 



The prices are fixed by the 

 owners of the goods offered. Pur- 

 chasers will observe that when the 

 maker's price is quoted by the owner, 

 it is given in the advertisement. The 

 catalogue-prices are not always to be 

 taken as expressing the value of the 

 apparatus offered, as in some cases 

 the apparatus was made for a special 

 order, and therefore held at a higher 

 value than the regular make of goods. 



Selecting and Arranging Dia- 

 toms. — Mr. J. Chalon lately described 

 his method of selecting and mounting 

 diatoms, before the Belgium Micros- 

 copical Society. He picks them up 

 with a hog's bristle, 4-5 mm. in 

 length, dipped in glycerin, which 

 causes the frustules to adhere to the 

 bristle. The cover-glass upon which 

 the diatoms are to be arranged is 

 coated with a thin layer of glycerin, 

 by placing a drop of glycerin in 25 

 parts of alcohol upon it. The alcohol 

 evaporates and leaves the glycerin. 

 This retains the diatoms in place, 

 and when all are arranged, the cover 

 is heated to drive off the glycerin, 

 when the diatoms remain firmly at- 

 tached to the glass. 



Proceedings of the American 

 "Society of Microscopists. — The 

 Proceedings of the fifth annual meet- 

 ing, held at Elmira in August of this 

 year, are already printed. They form 

 a volume of 292 pages, with four 

 plates. A good portrait of the late 

 Charles A. Spencer forms the frontis- 

 piece. A general index to the trans- 

 actions of all the preceding meetings 

 has also been published. 



The volume before us is a great 

 improvement upon preceding ones. 

 It shows great care in its preparation, 

 and evidence that the work has been 

 in competent hands. It contains a 

 full and instructive account of the 

 Elmira meeting. As an appendix to 

 the address of the President of the 

 Society, portions of which we have al- 

 ready printed, short notices of the lives 



of the celebrated manufacturers Tol- 

 les, Gundlach and Bulloch, and ahis- 

 torical notice of the Bausch & Lomb 

 Optical Company are given. Prof. H. 

 L. Smith's memoir of Charles A. Spen- 

 cer is printed in full, and it is well 

 worth reading. We cannot mention 

 the titles of all the articles, but among 

 them are the following : " On Light 

 and Illumination," by E. Gundlach ; 

 " Observations on the Fat Cells and 

 Connective - tissue Corpuscles of 

 Necturus," with a plate, by Prof. S. 

 H. Gage ; " Stereoscopic Effects Ob- 

 tained by the High-power Binocular 

 Arrangement of Powell & Lealand," 

 by A. C. Mercer, M. D., which is an 

 article of considerable interest, in 

 that the author endeavors to show 

 why both ortho- and pseudo-scopic 

 effects can be obtained with this in- 

 strument. Dr. F. M. Hamlin describes 

 the " Wheel-like and Other Spicula 

 of the Chirodota of Bermuda " in a 

 very interesting way, showing that 

 the form of the so-called wheels is 

 not properly described in the books. 

 The " Improved Griffith Club Micros- 

 cope " is figured and described. Mr. 

 H. Mills has an article on '* Micros- 

 copic Organisms in the Buifalo Water 

 Supply and in Niagara River " and 

 Mr. C. M. Vorce contributes one on 

 the forms found in Lake Erie, which 

 has an illustrative plate with 83 fig- 

 ures. Dr. T. B. Redding's article on 

 " Osmic Acid — Its Uses and Advan- 

 tages in Microscopicallnvestigations," 

 should serve to bring this valuable 

 reagent into more extended use. Prof. 

 T. C. Mendenhall gives an account 

 of some measurements of a stage 

 micrometer by Fasoldt, which shows 

 very good spacing; but we would like 

 to inquire how the Rogers micro- 

 meter, with which it was compared, 

 happened to be such a very poor one'? 

 It looks very much as though no 

 special efforts had been made to ob- 

 tain a fair specimen of Prof. Rogers' 

 work, and while it is true that the 

 author states that " it does great in- 

 justice " etc., to Prof. Rogers, we still 

 think it pertinent to inquire why the 



