926 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



the last five years. It lias proved very satisfactory and convenient. 

 The cards are postal card size, and each preparation has its own card. 

 Such a catalogue has the advantage that it may be arranged alpha- 

 betically. As new preparations are made new cards may be added in 

 their proper alphabetical order, while the cards of destroyed or dis- 

 carded preparations may be removed without in any way marring the 

 catalogue. Finally, the cards may be kept ui a neat box which 

 occupies but little more space than a manuscript book, and may be as 

 readily carried from place to place. The ease and certainty with 

 which the history of any preparation may be found is so evident that 

 it hardly needs to be mentioned. 



Cabinet. — A microscopical cabinet should possess the following 

 characters : — 



1. It should allow the slides to lie flat, and exclude them from 

 dust and light. 



2. Each slide should be in a separate compartment. At each end 

 of this compartment should be a groove or bevel, so that upon de- 

 pressing either end of the slide the other rises sufficiently to be easily 

 grasjjed. It is also desirable to have the floor of the compartment 

 under the object grooved, so that the slide opposite the preparation 

 will not rest on the wood, and thus become soiled. 



3. Each compartment should be numbered, and into each should be 

 put only the slide bearing the corresponding number. 



4. The drawers of the cabinet should be independent, but so close 

 together that the slide cannot get out when the cabinet is tipped. On 

 the outside or front of each drawer should be the number of the drawer 

 in roman numerals, and the number of the first and last compartment 

 in the drawer in arable numerals." 



In conclusion, it seemed to the author, both from theory and from 

 practice, that a collection of microscopical objects, catalogued, labelled, 

 and stored as described above, would be at its maximum value, from 

 the ease and certainty of finding objects, while the fulness of the in- 

 formation concerning them would make them guides as well as models 

 for students, and a storehouse of knowledge for the teacher and the 

 investigator. 



In the discussion which ensued, the method suggested by Prof. 

 Gage was considered too elaborate for any but a large laboratory. In 

 the matter of personal collections of the preparations which are gene- 

 rally small, "the opinion prevailed that each microscopist should 

 be allowed to indulge his whims and have them arranged to suit his 

 tastes." 



Mr. I. C. Thompson also, in an article on the Classification and 

 Labelling of Objects, writes * that with very few exceptions the labels 

 of slides are almost devoid of any further information than the bare 

 scientific or unscientific name of the object, and that often conveyed 

 in so vague a manner as to be hardly intelligible. Slides, as ordinarily 

 labelled, will not admit the insertion of much matter on the label, as 

 the width must necessarily be something less than one inch ; but if 

 two labels are affixed, and jjlaced horizontally on the slide instead of 

 * Sci.-Gobsip, 1883, p. 251. 



