570 PROCEEDINQS OF THE SOCIETT. 



neck, in which cotton or glass wool was placed, and two tubes were 

 drawn out from the neck, one, also plugged, provided for the iiurpose 

 of aspiration, the other for removing or supi)lyiiig the contents for 

 cultivation. The time required for aspirating a large quantity of air 

 was also found to he inconveniently great, so that an apparatus mado 

 on the principle of a steam injector was used, which was capalde of 

 drawing over 2000 litres of air in an hour if required. By means 

 of a diagram the method of charging the cultivation tubes with tho 

 contents of the bottle was explained. Dr. Maddox said ho had 

 suggested to Dr. Miquel the use of a small captive balloon for 

 carrying some of his " nutritive paper " for the purpose of obtaining 

 atmospheric germs at definite high altitudes from given localities. 



Mr. J. May all, jun., reverting to the model of the old Micro- 

 scope exhibited by Mr. Crisp at an earlier period of the meeting, 

 asked if there was any means of fixing the date when it was made, as 

 he thought it would be very interesting if they could do so with 

 certainty. 



Mr. Crisp said there was no difficulty in fixing tho exact date. 

 Agreeing in the suggestion of Mr. Madan that it was much better to 

 see a thing in the flesh, he had last month ordered the Microscope to 

 be made, and it was delivered that night. The workman deserved 

 all credit for the skilful manner in which he had manufactured so 

 deceptive a piece of antiquity ; even the paper on the drum was 200 

 years old. 



Mr. A. D. Michael gave a summary of his paper on " New British 

 Orihatidce " {sujira, p. 385). 



Mr. Crisp described some very interesting experiments by Dr. 

 Nussbaum and Dr. Gniber on tho artificial division of infusoria 

 (supra, p. 472). 



Mr. C. H. Kain's letter was read as follows : — 



" In the report of the last meeting of the Society I notice that a 

 note from Dr. Gray was read, warning members against the use of 

 tolu as a mounting medium on account of its tendency to form 

 crystals. I believe I was the first to call attention to tolu, and 

 therefore it may not be inappropriate for me to say a word. At 

 first I had the same difficulty as Dr. Gray. Indeed, sty rax is also 

 likely to produce crystals. There is, however, an easy way of 

 obviating the diflBculty in the case of tolu, viz. by dissolving out the 

 cinnamic acid. Tolu is not soluble in benzole, but cinnamic acid is. 

 I have found that by digesting the coarsely powdered gum in benzole 

 for a few days the cinnamic acid is removed. After pouring off all 

 the liquid possible, fresh benzole should bo added and allowed to 

 remain a day or two. After pouring off this, the rest of the benzole 

 should be evaporated, and the tolu then dissolved in chloroform and 

 filtered ; it is then ready for use. It is best to use heat in mounting, 

 so that, when finished, the medium is nearly or quite hard. The 



