482 Notes and Memoranda. 



Application op the Spectboscope to the Micboscope. — At the last 

 meeting of the Microscopical Society, Mr. Browning read a paper on this subject, 

 illustrated by numerous diagrams, showing the admirable arrangements he had 

 devised. In one form of his apparatus a prism of peculiar shape possesses a small 

 dispersive power in one direction, and a larger one in another, the rays having in 

 both cases the same angle of emergence. By changing the position of this prism, it 

 acts as a prism of smaller or greater angle, and is thus adapted to two classes of in- 

 vestigations, one needing less dispersion than the other. In Mr. Browning's method 

 of mounting, the spectroscope can beueed under thecondenser or as an eyepiece. Pro- 

 bably the best eyepiece arrangement will be a direct vision prism of the sort made 

 for Mr. Gassiot's electrical experiments. This gives a small dispersion adapted to 

 show absorption bands in fluids, and when more dispersion is required, two 

 prisms can be employed. Mr. Browning exhibited a spot of blood upon a card, 

 about the size of a full stop in very small print, and stated that with one of his 

 spectroscopes applied to the microscope Mr. Sorby had obtained a characteristic 

 spectrum. In Mr. Browning's arrangements the spectra of opaque objects are 

 easily seen, and blood globules or minute transparent cells observed more com- 

 modiously than is possible in the adaptation of the star spectroscope to the 

 microscope, in the mode adopted in Mr. Huggins' important experiments. Mr. 

 Glaisher, the President of the Microscopical Society, and Mr. Wenham spoke in 

 the highest terms of Mr. Browning's arrangements. 



New Living Object Teap. — Mr. Richard Beck described and exhibited at 

 the last meeting of the Microscopical Society an ingenious contrivance for caging 

 small creatures such as mites, with a view to their convenient examination. He 

 drills a hole in a glass slide of the dimension required, and by a small piece of 

 mechanism presses a strip of thin glass above and below the hole, so as to form a 

 top and bottom to the little cell. The apparatus is reversible, so that the 

 entrapped creature can be examined either way up. A series of these live traps 

 fit into a small mahogany box, and will be found very convenient for processes of 

 research, in which it is necessary that a small live object should be confined to 

 a small space, but not injured. Water can easily be introduced into the little 

 cells when required. 



New Lieberktjhn. — Mr. Richard Beck likewise described and exhibited a 

 new form of illuminator, consisting of a parabolic silver reflector, which slips on 

 to the brass work of an objective, and presents somewhat the appearance of half 

 a large lieberkuhn. It performs the function of the side silver reflector, and by 

 special arrangements, which Mr. Beck described, it allows an object to be illumi- 

 nated by nearly vertical rays. For some investigations Mr. Sorby found this 

 illumination essential to success. 



Pbodtjction op Oeganisms in Closed Yessebs. — No. 74 of the Pro- 

 ceedings of the Royal Society contains an account of a series of experiments 

 apparently made with due precaution by Dr. G> W. Child on the production of 

 organisms in vegetable infusions which had been boiled, which were closed after 

 receiving a supply of air that had passed through red hot porcelain tubes. Not- 

 withstanding these conditions, small bacterium bodies appeared, and Dr. Child 

 states that organisms such as occurred in his vessels could not have been detected 

 by the low powers employed by M. Pasteur. His conclusions are "either that 

 the germs of bacteriums are capable of resisting the boiling temperature in a 

 fluid, or they are spontaneously generated, or they are not organisms- at all." He 

 believes they are really minute vegetable forms, which is certainly the case in 

 Borne specimens, though it is possible mere physical aggregations of minute 

 globules may sometimes be taken for real bacteriums. He looks to Messr3. 

 Powell and Lealand's -^th as likely to elucidate the structure of these objects. 



Passage of Daek Body across the Sun. — M. Le Verrier communicated 

 to the French Academy a letter from M. Aristide Coumbary, stating he had 

 observed at Constantinople on the 8th of May, about 9*23 a.m., a small dark body 

 slowly passing across the solar disk. 



