T54 Seientifie News. [ December, 
appearances under the lens with the rigid candor of ordinary photography. 
Of the selection of objects it is impossible to judge from a few numbers. 
The text is a slightly amplified description of the plates. The work 
will be a luxury to those who are not practiced in the use of the micro- 
scope, and a convenience, as an excellent memorandum, to those who 
VOLATILIZED GoLD. — Mr. John Hewston, Jr., of San Francisco, 
Cal., has prepared beautiful mounts of gold obtained from the condens- 
ing chambers connected with the smelting furnaces. The gold is in the 
state of brilliant globules of pure metal, and suggests the loss that must 
be continually taking place during the smelting process. 
DraToms as FERTILIZERS. — The miserable attempt to establish the 
presence of diatoms in the tissues of plants and their consequent (?) im- 
portance to the plants as food, which inadvertently was printed in the 
American Journal of Science and Arts for June, 1876, seems not to have 
been intended as a hoax, after all. It looked like such a capital bur- 
lesque upon the follies of scientific puffing of commercial articles that it 
was almost impossible to consider it as intended for anything else. It 
has been exposed sufficiently long, however, notably in the American 
Journal of Microscopy, to give ample time for its real design to come 
out, and in absence of proof to the contrary it must be regarded as one 
of the most preposterous advertising tricks of the day. In the face & 
its absurdities it is hardly worth while seriously to discuss the still doubê- 
ful value of infusorial earths as fertilizers, or their probably injurious 
effects upon some kinds of soil. 
Excuances.—Julien Deby, C. E., of Brussels, is engaged in 
studying the fossil diatoms of Belgium, and would be glad to exchange 
‘Belgian material of this class for specimens from American deposits. 
Also, correspondence desired in regard to exchange of microscopical spec- 
imens and publications. Mr. Deby may be addressed, care of the editor 
of this department, 53 Fourth Street, Troy, NY. 
Slides of gold-bearing quartz from California, for good mounted ob- 
jects; polarizing preferred. S. R. Hatch, Milford, Mass. 
SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 
— So alarming and wide-spread have been the ravages of the locusts in 
the trans-Mississippi States and Territories, during the last few years, 
that there isa general demand by the people for united state and na- 
tional action in investigating the habits and devising means for staying 
the ravages of the migratory locust of the West. To this end, and in 
accordance with a call issued a few weeks ago by Governor Pillsbury, of 
Minnesota, a meeting of the governors of the Western States and Terri- 
tories took place in Omaha, Nebraska, October 25th, to devise means to 
rid the country of the grasshopper pests. The States were represented 
