56 General Notes. (January, 
Jenesej River with the view of returning to Europe across Siberia, while 
the other party returns to Norway by sea in the Proven. The results 
are exceedingly rich, geographically, geologically, and in a zodlogical 
way. The Sea of Kara was found to be completely free of ice, and was 
thus crossed and dredged for the first time by a scientific expedition: 
The water at the surface of the Kara was so fresh as to kill the animals 
brought up from the bottom. The investigations on the ocean currents 
are of much interest. If, says the account in Nature, in the north- 
ern part of the Sea of Kara, where the water on the surface is almost 
completely free of salt,and at this time of the year very warm, a flask 
with water from the surface is sunk to a depth of ten fathoms, the 
water freezes to ice. There are thus no warm ocean currents here at 
any considerable depth below the surface. On the 8th of August the 
party landed on the peninsula of Jalmal, which separates the Sea of 
Kara from the Bay of Obi. Here traces of men, some of whom had 
gone barefoot, and of Samoyede sledges, were visible on the beach. 
Close to the shore was found a sacrificial altar, consisting of about fifty 
skulls of the white bear and walrus, with reindeer bones, ete., laid in a 
eap. In the middle of the heap of bones there stood, raised up, two 
idols, roughly hewn from driftwood roots, newly besmeared in the eyes 
and mouth with blood, also two poles provided with hooks, from which 
hung bones of the reindeer and bear. Close by was a fire-place and a 
heap of reindeer bones, the latter clearly a remnant of a sacrificial meal. 
Arctic STATIONS. — Lieutenant Weyprecht has surprised geogra- 
phers by his common-sense suggestion that hereafter Arctic explorers 
should aim to erect stations at different points in the Arctic regions 
where observers should make simultaneous observations, extending over 
the period of a whole year, with identical instruments and according to 
identical rules, giving their first attention to physics, meteorology, biol- 
ogy, and geology, and the second place to geographical discoveries. Ac- 
cordingly, the German Commission on Arctic Explorations has recom- 
mended that a principal station be established on the east coast of — 
Greenland, with secondary stations on Jan Meyer Island and the west 
coast of Spitzbergen. 
MICROSCOPY.! 
A Dovste STAINING WITH HÆMATOXYLIN AND ANILINE. — When 
engaged last autumn in the Anatomical Department of the Oxford Uni- 
versity Museum in making microscopic preparations of brain, my atten- 
tion was especially directed to the staining of the sections. 
My first attempts were made with hematoxylin andcarmine. Of these 
the latter proved useful for detecting nuclei, but, the protoplasm of the 
cells remaining almost uncolored, it was impossible to distinguish the shape 
of the different cells, a matter of the greatest importance where, as in the 
1 This depart is conducted by Dr. R. H. Warp, Troy, N. Y. 
