252 General Notes. [ April, 
Mwutan Nizige. An object of geographical interest at present is the 
great island of New Guinea, which, notwithstanding its magnitude, its 
fruitfulness, and position in the great ocean highway in which it is 
placed, was thirty years ago put down in the geographies as a terra 
incognita, or, as the geographer Murray expressed it, “ viewed only by 
navigators at a distance.” During the last five years it has been the 
scene of active explorations by Beccaria, D’Albertis, Moresby, Rosen- 
berg, Maclay, the Russian explorer, Macleay, the ae explorer, 
Macfarlane, Stone, and others. 
MICROSCOPY.! 
_ San Francisco Microscopicat Society. — At the annual meet- 
ing of this society, held February Ist, the President, Prof. Wm. Ash- 
burner, gave the usual annual address, in which he summed up with 
more than usual directness and precision the last year’s progress and 
present standing of the society. The excellent financial condition was 
mentioned as a cause of increasing gratification and encouragement. 
The society comprises at present thirty resident, ten life, five honorary, 
and forty-one corresponding members; the resident membership being 
one less than last year, while the active membership, including resident, 
life, and those of the honorary members who reside in San Francisco, 
now aggregates forty-four, or three more than at the date of the last 
report. This very satisfactory condition has been attained without any 
effort to increase the membership. The only honorary member elected 
during the year was Mr. H. G. Hanks, one of the founders of the 
society and its president during the first three years. During the year 
twenty-three meetings were held without one failure for want of a 
quorum, with an average attendance of between eleven and twelve, or 
the same as the previous year, while the attendance of visitors was less 
than before. At the annual reception nineteen members participated 
and two hundred and eighty visitors were in attendance. The exhibi- 
tion was notably successful, but the effort to present a somewhat orderly 
arrangement of objects representing in a proper series the different 
kingdoms of nature was, owing to want of time for maturing the plan, 
less fully satisfactory than it is expected to be in future after further 
labor and study. The library contains two hundred and thirty-seven 
volumes, an increase of one hundred and three over last year. e 
cabinet now contains five hundred and twenty-three slides, an increase 
of ninety-four, the set of animal parasites being especially full and num- 
bering seventy slides. Some interesting apparatus has been acquired 
by purchase and donation; and the occupation of new and pleasant 
rooms has made the past year conspicuous in the history of the society- 
Alluding to the previously reported failure to attain a fully satisfactory 
result in the way of resolving difficult diatoms, and especially the last 
1 Conducted by Dr. R. H. Warp, Troy, N. Y. 
