188 NOTES. 
minutely and quite accurately represented by Dr. Carpenter’s de- 
scription (The Microscope, London, 1868, pp. 68 and 69). He 
continued to make these stages, and in the year 1864 furnished 
one to Prof. Edwin Emerson, then of Paris, who took pains to 
show the American stand to those interested in microscopes and 
especially to the makers. In October of the same year Mr. (now 
Dr.) W. W. Keen of Philadelphia exhibited one of these stands, 
with a similar stage, to Nachet, and the following spring placed it 
in his hands for safe packing for return to this country. These 
goniometer stages were certainly substantially the same as those 
now made, and were probably equal to any of the latter in deli- 
cacy of adjustment and finish; and it would seem that the publici- 
ty then given to them should guarantee to their maker the credit 
for their invention, unless some other person should claim to have 
arranged, and in some way published, an identical contrivance at 
an earlier date. 
NOTES. 
In the construction of new cases for the birds in the museum of 
the Boston Society of Natural History, we learn from the report 
of the custodian, Prof. Hyatt, “that extraordinary precautions 
were taken in order to render these cases absolutely insect-tight. 
The lumber was very carefully selected and kept heated while the 
work was going on, all joints were tongued, grooved and glued. 
The tops, bottoms and sides, were built into the plastering, the 
sashes grooved and tongued and locked by wedge-shaped bolts. 
The latter were invented in order to draw the sashes up tightly 
and firmly against the tongues at the top and bottom, and com- 
pletely close the fronts of each case. Morse’s patent brackets 
were used to suspend the shelving, which hangs upon the wall, and 
has no connection with the fronts. The success of these precau- 
tions is shown by the air-tight condition of the cases. By sud- 
denly opening or closing a sash, one could readily crush in, Or 
burst out, the neighboring glass panes. The resistance of the air 
is so great that it has to be overcome by a steady slow pressure 
as if one was working the handle of a piston. With the excep- 
tion of the method of bolting, and some other details, this plan is 
similar to that which has been successfully adopted by the Smith- 
-gonian Institution for the preservation of their valuable collection 
of birds, and was recommended to us by Professor Baird. 
