1880. ] Microscopy. 751 
Kasenge and Ujiji. No details of his return journey have been 
received as yet. He is known, however, to have followed the 
Lukuga for many days on its course to the Lualaba or Congo. 
He then returned by the lake to his camp, and finally reached the 
coast by a new route past the unvisited Lake Hikwa. 
At the same time that Mr. Thomson was crossing from Ny- 
assa to Tanganyika, the journey was being made by Mr. James 
Stewart, of the Mission station at Livingstonia. He left the for- 
mer lake at Kambwe lagoon about twenty-five miles south-west 
from Mbungo, on October 14, 1879. 
The ascent to the plateau was not so steep here as the R. G. S. 
expedition found it to be, and was accomplished in two days, 
when the elevation of 3900 feet was attained. Continuing to keep 
to the south-west of the route of Thomson, he found the average 
elevation of the plateau 4700 feet. The rain fall of the country 
is large, and its climate cool and bracing. The route over this 
plateau was a remarkably easy one, gradually rising from 3yoo 
feet to 5400 at the ridge overlooking Tanganyika, and there is 
not one difficult ascent. The descent to the lake is gradual, and 
took two days. The distance from Kambwe lagoon to Pambete 
was found to be 254 miles. Here he met Mr. Thomson and 
remained with him until his departure, when Mr. Stewart returned 
to Nyassa, reaching it again on December 3d. The homeward 
march was only 232 miles in length, and could be shortened 
probably to 210. 
In Chungu he found the trees thickly covered with large cater- 
pillars three or four inches long and as thick as the fore finger. 
The natives were gathering them in great numbers, to preserve 
them for food. One kind was a light pea-green color, the other 
dark with white spots and sharp spines on the back. 
MICROSCOPY :.' 
PERMANENT Microscopic PREPARATIONS OF Prasmopium.—Mr. 
- H. Gage advises picric acid as a means of hardening this inter- 
esting motile form of the Myxomycetes, without change of color 
in twenty-five per cent. alcohol. 
‘This department is edited by Dr. R. H. Ward, Troy, N. Y. 
