THE CAUSE OF CHOLERA. 221 



and one layer after another of strong paper pasted on until the necessary strength 

 is given, then if the bones are loose turn them over and repeat the process — make 

 a mucilage of gum Tragacanth. 



Another good way, is to cover the specimen with two or three inches of 

 plaster of Paris and allow it to set, this gives a fine protection to delicate bones. 

 Never be in a hurry in collecting or searching for fossils. Go over the ground 

 several times and remember that the less the specimen is exposed the more valua- 

 ble will it be. In the Niobrara beds in summer go into the beds early and work 

 until ten o'clock, and in the afternoon leave camp at half past two and work as 

 long as you can see. You will find a pair of smoked glasses of value in collect- 

 ing in hot weather. 



In packing the specimens into boxes use great care. Never pack heavy 

 and light specimens together. Mark each box with marking ink and number 

 each. Under the cover put a card with description of contents, date, formation 

 and collector. Always keep a note-book and record each day's work with 

 description of specimens collected and notes on the stratigraphy of each forma- 

 tion with as many sections as possible. 



The mode of mending specimens to prepare them for study is as follows : 

 The matrix is first carefully removed, and the edges to be joined made perfectly 

 clean. A cement made of glue, to which, when dissolved, plaster of Paris is 

 added until it is of the consistency of thick cream is at hand, and when the pieces 

 to be united are ready their edges are given a thin coat of cement with a brush, 

 they are then pressed closely together and held a short time until the cement is 

 hard when another piece is added, and so on until the bone is mended. Each 

 specimen is labelled and a record kept. 



THE CAUSE OF CHOLERA. 



The London Lancet remarks that the epidemic of cholera in the south of 

 France does more than maintain itself; it increases and it has diffused itself over 

 a somewhat larger area. But for all that it is still a limited outbreak, and the 

 hope that it may in the main be confined to the neighborhoods first attacked may 

 perhaps be realized to a greater extent than was at first thought possible. So far, 

 the rumors as to its extension to Paris and towns in other countries do not seem 

 trustworthy, and hitherto no case has been brought into the United Kingdom. 

 The Lancet gives a summary of a paper on cholera read on the 30th ult. before 

 the Accademia Petraca of Arezzo, by Dr. Tommasi-Crudeli, whose researches on 

 the bacillus malaria from a distinct advance in the etiology of intermittent fever. 

 After tracing the history of the three great cholera epidemics that have visited 

 Europe, he remarked that the disease was always an importation, never acclimat- 

 ized like sraall-pox, and he defined it as a " contagio-miasma, a morbigenous 

 germ, proceeding from a diseased human body, which never diffuses itself epi- 

 demically, except when the excretions containing it find in the soil conditions 



