76 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [Marcb, 



many are inaclive. Eight meetings were held during the year, with an 

 average attendance of about lo members ; J. Wood Mason was Presi- 

 dent and W. J. Simmons, Honorary Secretary. The cash receipts for 

 1891 were 345 rupees ($133.50), and the expenses 436 rupees ($313), 

 the printing of an excellent bulletin having absorbed most of the ac- 

 cumulations of previous years. The vSociety is to be commended for its 

 activity in natural history and its contributions to biology. 



New York Microscopical vSociety. 



The following officers were elected for the year 1892 : President, J. 

 D. Hyatt; Vice-President, Charles S. Shultz ; Treasurer, James 

 Walker; Recording Secretary, George E. Ashby ; Corresponding 

 Secretary, J. L. Zabriskie. 



NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



The Microscope and its Revelatiotis. By the late Wm. B. Carpen- 

 ter. Seventh edition. Revised by Rev. W. H. Dallinger, EE.D. 

 1099 pp., 31 plates, 800 engravings. American edition, P. 

 Blakistoh, Son & Co., Phila., 1891. $6.50. 

 The appearance of a new edition of Dr. Carpenter's well-known 

 work on " The Microscope and its Revelations," marks an era in the his- 

 tory of technical works on the microscope, and deserves a more extended 

 notice than can be given it within the limits of a magazine article. It 

 is without a rival in its particular field, and is beyond question the best 

 single work on the subject, not only in English but in any other lan- 

 guage. Its object has been, as stated in the preface, "to provide 

 the elements of the theory and principles involved in the construction 

 of the instrument itself, the nature of its latest appliances, and the 

 pi'oper conditions on which they can be employed with the best results. 

 Beyond this it should provide an outline of the latest and best modes of 

 preparing, examining, and mounting objects, and glance, with this pur- 

 pose in view, at what is easily accessible for the requirements of the 

 amateur in the entire organic and inorganic kingdom." 



But this is only a part of what has been done. The whole subject 

 of the optics of the microscope has been carefully reviewed and the 

 most modern doctrine stated anew, leaving out almost entirely the 

 antiquated and erroneous theories of angular aperture, etc., which are 

 now justly relegated to the volumes of ancient history. 



The present edition has been edited by Dr. W. H. Dallinger, who 

 has wholly rewritten the first five ' chapters and added two entirely 

 new ones. The remainder of the work also bears the marks of 

 strong personality, showing that it is substantially a new treatise. 

 The order in which the subjects arc treated is unfortunate. It is not 

 inspiriting to be plunged into columns of figures within the first dozen 

 pages of the work and then compelled to read a long historical account 

 of the origin imd devolopment of the microscope before the student 

 reaches the subject whicii naturally interests him most — the way in 

 which to use a modern microscope. The consideration of purely 

 abstract questions, such as optics and the theory of microscopical vision, 

 should, it seems to us, have been postponed until after some instruction 



