a nr rin Sa ae 
_— 
378 Canadian Record of Science. 
The President then requested Prof. Frank D, Adams, 
Ph.D., to read his paper on the ‘‘ Microscope as Applied to 
the Study of Rocks.” The professor began by stating that 
attempts to investigate the character of rocks and minerals 
were made in the 17th century but did not amount to 
much until 1826. Wm. Nicol, the discoverer of the Nicol 
“Prism,” first put in practice the grinding and preparing 
very thin sections of rock, but not much advance was made 
till 1850, when Henry Clifton Si:by, an Englishman of 
very great ability, laid the foundation for the whole science 
of petrography, and after him Prof. Zirket, of Leipzig, 
wrote the first general treatise on the composition of rocks. 
Prof. Adams then described the manner of cleaning a piece 
of stone, attaching it to a copper or glass plate, rubbing 
down with coarse, then fine, emery, then with prepared 
very fine ground rotten stone, then transferring to a slide. 
Considerabie discussion took place on this most graphically 
described subject which had been listened to with very close 
attention, and a very hearty vote of thanks was tendered to 
the lecturer for his most interesting paper. The President 
drew the attention of the meeting to the great value of this 
and other papers which were prepared with extreme care 
by the lecturers, and regretted that many of them not 
being in manuscript could not be kept among the records 
of the Society. 
MontreAL, 13th March, !893. 
The regular monthly meeting of the Montreal Micros- 
copical Society was held this evening, in the Library of the 
Natural History Society, 32 University Street, at 8 o'clock, 
The President being unavoidably absent from the city, 
Mr. J. Stevenson Brown was requested to take the chair. 
There were present, Mr. J. S. Brown, chairman, and 
Messrs. Chambers, Richards, Barton, McIntosh, Learmont, 
Shearer, Hausen, Sumner, Rev. Dr. Campbell, Williams, J. 
G. Shaw and Mr. BH. A. Small and a number of other visitors. 
The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved. 
A letter of resignation from Mr. Winn was read, which 
