302 Scientific News. [March 
ribbons of any desired length, since the softer paraffine at the 
edges of the successive sections sticks them together by their 
margins as fast as they are cut. 
The ribbons may be allowed to fall upon a slip of paper, which 
may be drawn out, as fast as the sections are cut, from under the 
bed-plate of the instrument, beneath which there is a space left 
for this purpose between the three toes or tripod upon which 
whole apparatus rests. The edge of the knife also remains in 
the same plane, no matter at what angle the cutting edge is 
placed with reference to the direction in which the block to be 
_ cut is moved, just as in the best forms of the sledge microtome. 
The advantages which this new instrument offers are, briefly, 
comparatively small cost, great efficiency, rapidity, and accuracy. 
One hundred sections per minute may very readily be cut with 
Its simplicity of construction, with few wearing parts, and 
slight liability to get out of order in the hands of inexperienced 
persons, will also commend it to the teacher and investigator. 
Experience has already shown that those once using it can 
scarcely ever be again induced to use the most efficient sledge 
or automatic microtomes of different design if they can have 
access to this instrument. This device is made by Mr. Zent- 
mayer, whose name is a sufficient guarantee of the workmanship 
employed in its construction. 
SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 
— William Willoughby Cole, the Earl of Enniskillen, who died 
November 12, 1886, was the possessor of one of the largest col- 
lections of fossil fishes in existence. He was associated with Sir 
Philip Grey Egerton in preparing the catalogue of fossil fishes so 
useful to geologists. . i 
_ —Henry Woodward, of the British Museum, is preparing a 
third edition of Morris’s “ Catalogue of British Fossils,” to be 
issued by the Cambridge University Press this year. 
—C. E. Broome, an English mycologist, died at Bath, England, 
November 15, 1886. 
—Karl Goebel, professor of botany at Rostock, is called to 
Marburg to take the chair left vacant by the death of Professor 
Wigand. 
—Culver Hall, at Dartmouth College, caught fire, Sunday, 
February 20, and the geological and zoological collections of the 
college had a narrow escape from destruction. 
directed, if th :nipul : l ee ee a, T PO ee a aE. f come 
