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SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



MICROSCOPY 



CONDUCTED BY J. H. COOKE, F.L.S., F.G.S. 



To whom Notes, Articles and material relating to Microscopy, 



and intended for Science-Gossip, are, in the first instance, to 



be sent, addressed "J. H. Cooke, Thorndale, Lincoln." 



A new Filtering Medium. — A German chemist 

 has found that powdered pumice-stone is an 

 effective filtering medium for liquids containing 

 precipitates that are likely to pass through paper. 



A new Microscopic Worm. — A new worm, 

 living in colonies in the roots of asters, and popu- 



a value of /50 to £120 per pound. Little weight 

 is lost in the process, and it is not a case of slow 

 desiccation which can be imitated or accelerated 

 by the withdrawal of water. In the course of his 

 researches, M. Beauregard has found that the 

 change is due to a microbe, which he names 

 Spirillum recti PJtyseteris, and which appears slowly 

 to destroy the offensive odour and to produce the 

 delicate perfume. It has not yet been determined 

 whether this microbe is capable of producing 

 disease in the whale or in man. 



Atmospheric Dust. — In the September issue of 

 this journal, Dr. J. O. Symes gave us some 

 interesting details bearing on the constituents of 

 atmospheric dust. To supplement this paper we 

 now reproduce some micro-photographs of dust- 

 particles, which Dr. J. B. Cohen submitted with 

 his lecture on " The Air of Towns " to the Smith- 

 sonian Institution in the prize competition for the 

 Hodgkins Fund. Fig. 1 shows some of the objects 

 composing the dust of a dwelling-room, highly 



Fig. 2. — Atmospheric Microbes. 



-Dust particles in the 



(Highly magnified). 



larly known as the "aster-worm," has been 

 described by the Rev. Hilderic Friend, of Tipton, 

 under the scientific name of Enchytraeus parvulus. 

 Friend. It is the most minute member known of 

 the order including the earthworms. Its length is 

 only about an eighth of an inch, yet it has thirty 

 segments, the first six or seven of which are 

 pellucid. 



The Microbe of Ambergris. — Ambergris has 

 been already shown by Professors G. Gouchet 

 and H. Beauregard to be an interesting calculus 

 which is developed in the rectum of the sperm 

 whale. A microscopic examination has shown 

 this calculus to be composed of crystals of 

 ambrine mixed with varying proportions of a 

 black pigment from the rectal lining, and with 

 star-coral debris. When freshly removed it is 

 soft and not at all pleasant in odour, but after 

 preservation in an air-tight tin case for some 

 years, the faecal odour is lost or transformed 

 into an agreeable perfume that gives the material 



magnified. They consist of particles of soot, 

 crystals, fibres, vegetable cells, spores and pollen 

 grains, starch grains and meteoric iron ; all of 

 which are so minute that it has been calculated 

 that it would take forty million million to weigh 

 one grain. In fig. 2 we have some of the results 

 of the researches of M. Miquel at the Observatory 

 of Montsouris, near Paris, on the air of that city. 

 He has examined the street dust, the dust of 

 rooms, the air from the sewers, and from the top 

 of the Pantheon, high above the town — in short, 

 the dust of every possible place where disease 

 germs might lie. 



Street Microbes. — The number of microbes 

 in the streets of Paris is on the average about 

 twenty-one to twenty-two in the cubic foot. In 

 Dundee, Professor Carnelley found twenty in the 

 cubic foot. Outside Paris the number falls off to 

 two, whereas, in dirty, one-roomed houses, Car- 

 nelley found 3,430, and Miquel, in a neglected 

 hospital ward, 3,170 in the cubic foot. Dr. Cohen 



