Fuly 14, 1870] 
managers recommended that no change should be made. The 
earlier practice was to appoint the professor only for a course of 
lectures, and upwards of fifty years ago a bye-law was passed 
that the election of a professor should be only for one session. 
With a few exceptions, the election of professors has been annual 
from that date down to the present time, and the power of not 
re-electing has been of great service, says the report, in the 
management of the University. Dr. Steven introduced a motion 
to abolish the annual election of professors. He spoke of the 
present system as most degrading. It struck at the root of the 
institution’s claim to be a university ; and while it was evidently 
contrary to the will of the founder, Dr. Anderson, he had heard 
of no case in which it had been of benefit. Mr. Kidston, secre- 
tary, remarked that many years ago it had been the means of 
causing the protessors to pay up their rent. Dr. Steven said he 
had heard it remarked that the trustees might come to look upon 
security for rent as a qualification in their professors of more 
consequence than educational ability, The professors, he con- 
tended, should be elected aut vitam aut culpam,—Dr. Pirrie 
seconded the motion. An amendment was moved by Mr. 
M‘Lelland for having no alteration in the present system. Dr. 
Adams supported the motion in a speech of some length, in 
which he characterised the annual election of professors as some- 
what disreputable. The chairman recommended that no 
alteration should take place. All the other officials, he argued, 
were elected annually, and why not the professors? Dr. Weir 
asked an explanation ot the paragraph in the report which stated 
that the system had been found to be of great service. Mr. 
Kidston, by way of reply, again instanced the refusal of the 
professors to pay rent. Ona division, the amendment was carried 
by 35 as against 6. The meeting was proceeding to some routine 
business when our reporter left.” 
We had hoped that the trustees of Anderson’s University 
would have made good use of the opportunity which exists at the 
present time, in consequence of the vacancy in the chair of 
Chemistry and of Mr. Young’s munificent offer to endow a 
professorship of Practical Chemistry, to make some alterations in 
the status of the professors of the institution, but we seem doomed 
to disappointment. The professors are still to be appointed 
yearly, to give one course of lectures, and to have the privilege 
of paying rent for their laboratories and class-rooms in the mean- 
time. The consequence of this will be that no chemist of 
eminence will be induced to undertake the duties of a post in 
which he will find himself on the same footing with other officials, 
doorkeepers, and laboratory man, we suppose ; and we shall be 
much surprised if anyone will be fcund to apply himself solely to 
the duties of the appointment if he is to be liable to find himself 
turned out at the end of a year. The principal portion of his 
time must necessarily be devoted to commercial work and other 
means of obtaining a living, to the great detriment of scientific 
research, and certainly not to the credit of an institution which 
claims to be a university. 
THE MICROSCOPE 
HOICE OF A Microscore.—Medical and other students are 
at this time of the year purchasing a microscope with which 
to begin the investigation of animal and vegetable structures. 
Others who would wish to invest in an instrument are deterred 
by the expense on the one hand and by the fear of obtaining a 
worthless thing on the other. Too strong a protest cannot be 
made against the notions prevalent with regard to microscopes, 
and encouraged by most of the makers in this country. The 
handsome-looking instrument of great size, with its long tube and 
innumerable wheels, is not to be recommended to the would-be 
observer, even should he feel justified in the expenditure. The 
microscopes which are used in most of the German laboratories 
where so much thorough work is done (to the writer's knowledge 
in Prof. Stricker’s and Prof. Rokitansky’s laboratories at Vienna, 
in Prof. Schweigger Seidel’s at Leipzig, and in Prof. Claude 
Bernard’s at Paris), are the little instruments of Hartnack, which 
do not stand above ten inches high, with a simple but large stage 
without any moyement, no rackwork to the tube, but a sliding 
motion and a fine adjustment. The instrument is used im the 
vertical position with complete comfort, and when liquid is on 
the stage, this position being necessary, it is of considerable 
advantage to have a small microscope over which one can easily 
bend the head. Large microscopes, with their complicated 
machinery, are made to suit the optician who sells them, and not 
for the convenience of the observer. Those who wish to geta 
NATURE 
Biles 
microscope should insist either on having one of these small 
and handy instruments made, or order one from M. Verick or 
M. Hartnack‘in Paris. Such a body having been purchased at 
a very minimum of cost, a larger sum may be expended on the 
really essential part of the apparatus, namely, the lenses. And 
here it will be found of great advantage to have the tube of the 
microscope not more than three-and-a-half or four inches in 
length, for then the objectives of the continental makers can be 
used with the greatest advantage, though, with proper care as to 
the ocular or eye-piece, they may be used on our ordinary long- 
tubed awkward English microscope. It is almost incredible that 
the English makers of object-glasses continue to demand three, 
or even four, times the price for their lenses which foreign makers 
do for lenses in every respect as good. For two pounds an 
object-glass may be obtained of M. Verick or M. Hartnack, 
of Paris, No. 8, which is quite as good a glass and in some 
respects more pleasant to use than the one-eighth, for which 
English opticians demand eight guineas. Many persons anxious 
to work with the microscope are deterred by the price of really 
first-rate instruments in this country. What we urge upon them 
most earnestly is to purchase such a body with eye-piece as that 
described above—simple but strong and steady- -for between two 
and three pounds, and to equip the instrument with the objectives 
of MM. Verick or Hartnack, say No. 2, No. 5, and No. 8, 
which can be obtained for another four pounds, We shall have 
occasion again to speak of the merits of English and foreign 
objectives, especially of the immersion object-glasses. At pre- 
sent we speak from personal experience, and desire to point out 
the convenience and cheapness of the small microscope-body, 
and the thorough excellence and immensely diminished cost of the 
French makers’ object-glasses. 
Cutting Sections of Tissues. —The method of ‘‘ embedding” 
first practised by Stricker and Klebs is now extensively used in 
Germany, and is of very great assistance to the practical histo- 
logist. It consists simply in surrounding the object from which 
sections are desired, with either paraffin, stearine, or a mixture 
of wax and oil. This latter is preferred at Vienna by Prof. 
Stricker and Dr. Klein, his assistant, and can be obtained of the 
exact consistency which may be desired ; usually equal parts are 
to be used. A little tray of paper is made, and some of the wax 
composition in a melted state is poured in. The object to be 
cut is then placed in the tray, and more composition added, till 
the object is thoroughly enclosed. When hard, sections of the 
mass can be cut, the advantage being in the case of thin laminz 
or processes, that a complete support is offered by the surround- 
ing composition, and a uniformly thin cutting may be obtained. 
For some purposes the microtome of Dr. Ranvier, of Paris, is 
very useful: it is similar to one recently brought out by Mr. 
Stirling, of the Anatomical Museum, Edinburgh. In this 
little instrument we have a flat piece of brass with a hole 
in the centre, leading into a cylindrical chamber, at the 
bottom of which a screw works. A piece of elder-pith is 
excavated, so as to hold the tissue to be cut; and when this 
has been well fixed in it, the pith is squeezed into the cylindrical 
box through the hole in the brass plate. A razor drawn along 
the surface of the brass plate cuts through the pith and the tissue 
it embraces, leaving a surface perfectly smooth and continuous 
with that of the plate. A turn of the screw, which works into 
the cylindrical box, now causes a certain very small thickness of 
the pith and tissue to project above the plate, and the razor again 
drawn across and pressed on to the surface of the brass plate, 
cuts a fine section, the exact thickness of which may be nicely 
regulated by the screw which pushes up the pith. This little 
instrument may be obtained at a small cost from M. Verick, 2, 
Rue de la Parcheminnerie, Rue St. Jacques, Paris. It is not 
unlike an instrument described in English books on the micro- 
scope for cutting sections of wood, but its application with the 
use of pith, previously much in use for making sandwiches with 
delicate tissues which had to be cut, increases its value greatly. 
As to knives to be used in making sections, though some large 
knives are made on purpose, there is nothing better than a first- 
rate broad-bladed razor. Dr. Meynert has cut his immense col- 
lection of brain preparations with a common razor. 
Staining and Mounting Tissues.—The method which is now 
very extensively used in German histological laboratories for the 
study and preservation of all kinds of delicate tissues, such as 
sections of the developing hen’s egg, morbid growths, fine injec- 
tions, nerve tissues, &c., is as follows: The section, either from 
a fresh specimen or from one preserved in alcohol, is placed in a 
solution of carmine in ammonia, from which all excess of ammonia 
