ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 141 



McIntire, S. J.— Another Eveirin; at the Royal Microscopical Society. 

 [Description of the first Conversazione of this Session.] 



L * Sci.-Gossip, 1888, pp. 19-20. 



Nelson, E. M.— The Microscope — Nageli and Schwendener— English Translation, 



1887. Engl. Mech., XLVI (1887) pp. 325, 364-5 (2 figs.), 393-4. 



Also comments by "Practical," who finds it "far too abstruse to be of practical 



value to the general body of microscopists " {Ibid., p. 341), and reply by 



Dr. J. Edmunds {Ibid., p. 365).— "A Fellow of the Royal Astronomical 



Society," who prefers Heath's 'Geometrical Optics' {Ibid., p. 390).— Eeview 



by Dr. W. H. Dallinger {Nature, XXXVII., pp. 171-3). 



Heichert, C. — Directions for using the Microscope. Trans/, by A. Frazer. 



[In the Translator's Preface acknowledgments are made to " Mr. A. Schulze 

 (Fellow of the Eoyal Microscopical Society)." No such name appears, 

 however, in the Society's List of Fellows.] 



12 pp. and 2 figs., 8vo, Edinburgh, 1887. 

 Royston-Pigott, G. W. — Microscopical Advances. XXIX., XXX. 

 [Butterfly dust ; bars, villi, and bacilli ; latticed and beaded ribs.] 



Engl. Mech., XLVI. (1887) pp. 357, 379-80 (4 figs.). 

 Y ohce, C. M. — The Meeting of the American Society of Microscopists. 



Amer. Hon. Micr. Journ., VIII. (1887) pp. 207-9. 

 Waterhouse, G. R., Hon. F.R.M.S. Obituary Notice. 



Athenseum, 1888, January 28th, p. 119. 



/3. Technique.* 

 (1) Collecting Objects, including- Culture Processes. 



Cultivation of Saccharomycetes.t — Some fermentation experiments 

 with which Mr. W. E. Stone has been engaged required the application 

 of pure yeast, free from other organisms capable of producing fermenta- 

 tion, and the following was the method of separation and cultivation 

 employed : — 



A few drops of fresh beer-yeast were shaken in a test-tube with 

 sterilized gelatin, which had been melted and cooled again until it was 

 barely fluid. This flowed upon sterilized plates gave in twenty-four 

 hours, at ordinary room temperature, a great number of colonies of 

 Schizomycetes and Saccharomycetes, from which, with the aid of an 

 ordinary dissecting Microscope, it was easy to inoculate new cultures. 

 The gelatin was of ordinary composition in daily use in the laboratory, 

 viz. 10 per cent, gelatin, 10 per cent, grape sugar, Liebig's " Fleisch 

 Extract " added to give a yellowish-brown colour, and neutralized with 

 sodium carbonate. Such a mixture is solid at 25° C. 



For further culture the isolated gelatin-plate colonies were inocu- 

 lated into sterilized solutions consisting of an extract made by boiling 

 200 grams of yeast in a litre of water, filtering, and adding 10 per cent, 

 of grape-sugar. In such a solution an inoculation of a few yeast-cells 

 \isually increased in from twenty-four to forty-eight hours sufficiently 

 to cover the sides and bottom of an ordinary 200 c.cin. flask with a thick 

 white sediment. The cultures were most strong and active at the end 

 of forty-eight hours. The supernatant fluid was then poured off, leaving 

 the yeast deposit comparatively dry, 20 c.cm. of sterilized water added, 

 and in this condition transfer to the sugar solution undergoing observa- 

 tion was easy by means of a pipette. By this method, and the use of 

 the extract of yeast as a nutritive solution, pure cultures were repeatedly 



* This subdivision contains (1) Collecting Objects, including Culture Pro- 

 cesses; (2) Preparing Objects; (3) Cutting, including Imbedding and Microtomes; 

 (4) Staining and Injecting ; (5) Mounting, including slides, preservative fluids, &c. ; 

 (6) Miscellaneous. t Bot. Gazette, xii. (1887) pp. 270-1. 



