1881.] 



MICEOSCOPICAL JOUKNAL. 



room where the slides are mounted, 

 add one-tenth as much good glycerin 

 and a little solution of borax, car- 

 bolic acid, or camphor-water ; sali- 

 cylic acid is a good preservative, but 

 I have thought that it might dissolve 

 some preparations. The mixture 

 should be well filtered, while hot, 

 through washed muslin or other fabric, 

 as it will not run through the usual fil- 

 ter-paper, and the subsequent addition 

 of a little alcohol improves its work- 

 ing. Objects, if perfectly clean, may 

 be transferred at once from water to 

 this medium, which should be slightly 

 warmed before using if not perfectly 

 fluid. The cover is adjusted and the 

 slide put away until a number have 

 accumulated. The cover should not 

 be pressed down too hard, and a 

 liberal amount of jelly used to allow 

 for shrinkage in drying. The slides 

 may be finished as soon as the jelly 

 has set, or they may be left for sev- 

 eral days. If air-bubbles are entan- 

 gled they will usually escape while 

 drying, or they may be driven out by 

 warming the slide a little. When 

 ready to finish the slides, take them 

 to a water-cooler and let the ice-cold 

 water drip over them, while with a 

 camel's hair brush, rather stiff, all 

 the superfluous jelly may be readily 

 brushed away by the aid of the flow- 

 ing water, which keeps the jelly under 

 the cover, hard. The slides are then 

 dried with a towel or blotter, and 

 finished with a balsam-ring, or with 

 any other cement that suits the fancy 

 of the operator. 



The advantages of this method are 

 that it obviates the necessity of the 

 previous preparation of cells for ob- 

 jects of considerable thickness, and 

 it seems to present most of the ad- 

 vantages of a fluid-mount without its 

 difficulties. If the slide is properly 

 dried before finishing with balsam, 

 no cloudiness appears, and the slide 

 cannot be distinguished by inspec- 

 tion from a balsam-mount, while there 

 is much less distortion, loss of color, 

 etc., in the jelly than in the balsam 

 solutions usually employed. I have 



found no reason in ten year's expe- 

 rience to doubt that slides mounted in 

 this way will be permanent. 



W. H. Seaman. 



Cells— Their Growth and 

 Functions.* 



Every member of the Society is, in 

 a general way, aware that all living 

 organisms from the simplest to the 

 most complex, are developed from 

 simple cells, but perhaps it would 

 puzzle some of us to tell just what a 

 cell is, and precisely how it grows 

 and multiplies. Still, some knowledge 

 of the growth and functions of cells 

 is necessary, if one desires to under- 

 stand the simplest phenomena of 

 plant or animal physiology, and even 

 structural botany only becomes a part 

 of scientific study when we consider 

 the gradual changes which the simple 

 cells undergo, as plants develop. 



It is my intention to bring before 

 this Society, from time to time, short 

 papers describing the various methods 

 by which cells multiply and change 

 their forms and functions. The sub- 

 ject is one which possesses great in- 

 terest to the general microscopist, and 

 so far as time permits me, I shall en- 

 deavor to make the papers intelligible 

 to those who have not studied cell- 

 growth and also interesting to those 

 who have. 



The word cell, in the language of 

 science, has a number of synonyms, 

 among which maybe mentioned utri- 

 cle^ vesctde, corticula and cellule. At the 

 present time all of these, except cel- 

 lule, are obsolete, and we speak of 

 cells or cellules synonymously. 



A complete cell is composed of four 

 parts, viz.: the cell-wall, the proto- 

 plasm, the cell-sap and the nucleus 

 with its nucleolus. Usually, however, 

 the term cell is employed in a very 

 general sense, to designate the ele- 

 mental structure of plants or animals, 

 without reference to the presence of 



* Read before the New York Microscopical 

 Society, December 3d, 1880. 



