502 General Notes. [ August, l 
EXPLORATION IN New Guinea.— This great island offers one of 
the most promising fields at present open to the explorer, as its interior 
is still an absolute terra incognita. The ill success of Mr. Macleay’s 
attempt to penetrate the interior by way of Fly River, was due to the 
unfavorable season of the year. Mr. O. C. Stone has been more success- 
ful, as he ascended the Mai-Kassa River, discovered and named by him 
the Baxter River, in the cooler season. The banks are sparsely popu- 
lated, the natives being cannibalistic at times in their tastes. In his ac- 
count of his adventures in the Ellengowan, a steamer of eighty tons, he 
describes the dugong, kangaroos, Megapodius (one of the nests of these 
fowl being ten feet high by ninety in circumference), birds-of-paradise, 
large snakes, and the vegetation of the shores. To the naturalist and 
botanist the shores of the Baxter River present features of rare interest 
when we take into consideration the comparative immunity from danger, 
combined with the ease with which they may be approached, both be- 
ing considerations of no small importance. That the southern part of 
New Guinea is either cut up into a series of islands, or intersected by 
rivers and streams of considerable length, is beyond doubt. 
At the meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, held May 8th, Mr. 
Stone read a paper on The Country and Natives of Port. Moresby; 
New Guinea, and a paper on The Natives and Products of Fly River, 
New Guinea, by Signor L. M. D’Albertis. Sir Henry Rawlinson hoped 
that a “Cameron” for New Guinea would soon turn up, and that Mr. 
Young would be the coming explorer, and would force himself into the 
large and comparatively unknown regions of New Guinea. < 
MICROSCOPY.! 
PoLarization or Livine Tissurs. —A correspondent of Science - 
Gossip has recently noticed that the tissues of a living shrimp arè 2 
fected by the polariscope, giving most beautiful colors, which cannot if a 
obtained by using the flesh after it has been boiled, and he desires : q 
know whether any one else has observed this. Rev. E. C. Bolles, j ; 
Salem, Mass., has been accustomed for years, in his popular beige : 
the microscope, to demonstrate this by exhibiting upon thé sereen® 
screen-effect can hardly be conceived than the flashes ie 
over the large and well-defined image of the muscular fibres at every 
traction connected with the movements of the living animal. : 
Iphia, arranges 
ArrRanGinG Dratoms. — Dr. G. C. Morris, of Philade i 
1 stage 38 * 
An arm, attached by means of a socket to the stage, carries & 
1 Conducted by Dr. R. H. Warp, Troy, N. Y. 
