Feb. 9, 1882] 
NATURE 
353 
bath, and the specimen is retained init for about three or four days. 
It is of course advisable to have vessels of various sizes, so as 
not to use more jelly than is absolutely necessary. I und that a 
small pudding-basin, a vegetable-dish, a soup-tureen, and an 
earthenware foot-bath form a very useful set of vessels ; a galva- 
nized iron wash-tub serving as an excellent water bath. For 
ordinary purposes I use gelatine-glue instead of pure gelatine, 
the former being only one-fourth the price of the latter. Phenol 
may be substituted for corrosive snblimate. 
After removal from the glycerine the specimen is thoroughly 
drained, and placedina dry room protected from the dust. Such 
parts as the vertebral column, the fins, and, in most cases the 
skull may be left to dry without further care, but thick 
or strongly curved structures, such as the jaws and shoulder 
girdle, should be fastened out while drying with strappings of 
tape, small wooden or cardboard supports, &c., as otherwise a 
certain amount of twisting is inevitable. 
When no more shrinking or ‘‘ buckling” is perceptible—it is 
generally advisable to allow some weeks for this—the specimen 
is varnished with a solution of white shellac in rectified spirit. 
This should be done in a warm room, as the slightest damp pro- 
duces precipitation of the shellac. After two or three coats of 
this varnish the cartilage is found to have_a dry and smooth but 
not too glossy surface. 
In mounting the skeleton the best way is to support each part 
separately on a light wire cradle, so that it can at any time be 
removed for examination. If it is found necessary to articulate 
any of the parts, it is advisable to use platinum wire. 
In preparing the chondrocranium of Teleostei (e.g. Salmo) it is 
again advisable to have recourse to parboiling: the membrane 
bones can then be easily removed and thecartilaginous brain-case, 
Meckel’s cartilages, and the branchial arches prepared as above. 
Skeletons of earlier mammalian foetuses must be put through the 
process 77 foto, the chief disadvantage of this method being that 
the bones, being impregnated with gelatine, never become very 
white. In later foetuses the epiphyses of the long bones and 
other cartilages are readily removed, and may then be prepared 
separately. In disarticulating mammalian skulls it is a good 
plan to remove the mesethmoid and prepare it in the above 
method, thus preserving an important part of the skull which 
the student, as a rule, never sees unless he takes the trouble to 
dissect it out for himself. 
Up to the present time my two assistants—to whose care and 
patience it is only right that I should express my indebtedness— 
have prepared entire skeletons of Carcharodon, Cestracion, Raja, 
Ceratodus, and calf foetus, chondrocrania of Alopecias, Acan- 
thias, Salmo, and Petromyzon, and mesethmoid of the sheep. 
Some of these have now been prepared for several months, and 
the small amount of shrinkage may be gathered from the fact 
that an entire skeleton of Ceratodus lost only 1-36th of its length, 
and that the membrane bones of the Trout, which wereseparated 
from the chondrocranium before the preparation of the latter, 
fitted afterwards into their places with great accuracy. I have 
not yet, however, been thoroughly successful with the jaws of the 
Hlasmobranchs, as hitherto there has always been a'slight cracking 
of the superficial calcareous crust, which in the jawsis much thicker 
than elsewhere; but as this is sometimes seen, to a slight extent, 
even in spirit specimens, I do not at present see how to prevent 
itentirely. With purely cartilaginous structures the success of the 
method is very marked : for instance, the gill-arches of Cestracion 
and of Raja, prepared with the delicate branchialrays, and in the 
former genus, the extra-branchial cartilages have, after several 
weeks, their flexibility and translucency unimpared. 
Other organs, for the preservation of which I have found this 
method successful, are hearts, stomachs, intestines, &c. Even 
the entire alimentary canal with the liver spleen and pancreas of, 
for instance, a skate, may be prepared with a tolerable amount 
of success, All these soft parts must, of course, be first thoroughly 
hardened with alcohol or chromic acid. I have also obtained a 
fairly good preparation of the skate’s brain 2 sitd with the in- 
tracranial portions of the cerebral nerves, but as far as my present 
experience goes, I hardly think that my method is likely to be 
as successful as Giacomini’s for brains (¥ourn. of Anat, and 
Phys,, January, 1879). 
I may mention that I have tried a modification of Giacomini’s 
method for cartilaginous skeletons, but hitherto have not found 
it so successful as the glycerine jelly process. 
I have had some little success in preserving Crustacea, 
Echinoderms, &c,, so as to retain their natural colour and flexi- 
bility, but further experiments are wanted in this direction. I 
have also made one or two attempts to apply the method for the 
preparation of skins of fishes, amphibia and reptiles for stuffing : 
the few experiments already made show a distinct improvement 
upon the ordinary dried skins, both in the preservation of the 
natural colour and in the diminution of shrinking. Some modi- 
fication of the process may possibly be useful for the wattles, 
&c., of birds. In spite of the obvious objections to stuffed 
specimens, they could be ill-spared in a public museum, neither 
skins nor spirit specimens being suited to replace them, and it 
would certainly be an advance in museum technique, if, for 
nstance, the ordinary brown, shrivelled, and highly varnished 
pecimens of fishes could be replaced by something a little more 
life-like, T. JEFFERY PARKER 
Dunedin, N.Z., November, 3rd, 1881 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
INTELLIGENCE 
OxrorpD.—In a Convocation held on February 7 the sum of 
250/. was voted to the Linacre Professor for apparatus for the 
Physiological Laboratory. 
Dr. T. K, Chambers, Christchurch, has been nominated to 
represent the University in the General Council of Medical 
Education in place of the late Prof. Rolleston. 
The Curators of the Bodleian library have elected Mr. E. W. 
B. Nicholson, M.A., of Trinity College, as Bodley’s Librarian 
in place of the late Mr, Coxe. 
The Examiners for the Burdett Coutts Geological Scholarship 
have given notice that the examination will be held on Monday, 
February 27 and three following days, at 10a.m. The scholar- 
ship is tenable for two years, and is open to all members of the 
University who have passed the necessary examinations for the 
degree of B,A., and shall not have exceeded their twenty-seventh 
term. 
SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 
Journal de Physique, January.—On the limits of electrolysis, 
by M. Berthelot.—Note on Prof, Clerk Maxwell’s memoir on 
the theory of maintenance of electric currents by mechanical 
work without using permanent magnets, by M. Brillouin.—Ex- 
perimental researches on Purkinje’s phenomenon, by MM. Macé 
de Lepinay and Nicati.—Varnish for writing on glass, by M. 
Crova, 
Reale Istituto Lombardo di Scienze e Lettere. Rendiconti, vol. xiv’ 
Fasc. xvili.-xix.—Zoological annotations, by Prof. Payesi.—On 
protistological analysis of drinking water, by Prof. Maggii—Another 
case of a single kidney in man, with incomplete development of 
the spermatic vesicle and the prostate on the defective side, by 
Prof. Sangalli.—Vines and their :enemies in 1881, by Prof. 
Garovaglio.—On some fossils of the Upper Jurassic found in the 
western Venetian Alps, by Dr. Parona.—Experimental re- 
searches on the physiological and therapeutic action of cocaine, 
by Prof. Morselli and Dr, Buccola.—Reduction of integrals of 
algebraic functions to integrals of rational functions, by Prof. 
Formenti.—The double quadratic transformation of space and 
its application to the non-Euclidian geometry, of space, by S. 
Aschieri. 
Fase. xx.—Reports on works presented and on prize competi- 
tions, also announcement of prize subjects. 
Atti della R, Accademia dei Lincei, vol. vi. fasc. 3.—New 
series for expressing the heliocentric coordinates in function of 
the mean anomaly, by S. de Gasparis.—Contribution to the 
anatomy of leaves, Part II., by S. Briosi.—On the present re- 
gression of glaciers of the Alps, by S. Stoppani.—Reports on prize 
competitions. The royal prize in biology (10,000 lire) is divided 
between Prof. Mosso and Prof. Trinchese, the work of the 
former being sphygmographic researches on the circulation of the 
blood in the human brain; and that of the latter on Italian 
maritime fauna (describing several new species), and on the 
early development of mollusca. The Royal prize in mineralogy 
and geology (10,000 lire) is awarded to Prof. Taramelli, for a work 
on the geology of the Venetian province. In physical science Prof 
Poloni is awarded a prize of 1500 lire, for a memoir on the per- 
manent magnetism of steel at different temperatures,—The salient 
features of these and other memoirs are noted. 
Vol, xi. fasc. 4.—Researches on movements of the intestine, 
by Signori Mosso and Pellacani.—On the action of halogenated 
