1885. ] Microscopy. 107 
work has thus been started, and this work is destined to grow 
rapidly in general importance and interest. It may be worth 
while to consider briefly the character and the urgency of such 
work, and to suggest how its aims can be promoted by those who 
are actively engaged in the various fields of microscopical 
research. 
The microtome has come to occupy a place in the zoological 
laboratory second in importance only to the microscope itself. 
Many improvements in details and in accessories have followed 
the introduction of this instrument, and a whole series of methods 
has sprung up in connection with its use. In short, we have a 
new art which has been appropriately called mzcrotomy. 
The general favor with which the microtome has been received 
is the best evidence of its usefulness. There ought no longer to 
be any place for prejudice or indifference in regard to its merits. 
The use of the instrument is so simple and the methods connected 
with it so easily acquired that no naturalist can afford to work 
without it. 
It is not enough to possess a microtome and to be master of 
its simpler uses; the working naturalist should have the best, or 
one of the best instruments in the market, and it is important 
that he should have the earliest information of any improvements 
number of new preservative and staining fluids have been de- 
scribed; and new methods of killing, hardening, preserving, 
‘ staining and imbedding have been recommended. The rapi 
development of methods is at once the result and one of the chief 
causes of the increasing activity in every field of biological re- 
search. The improvement of methods leads to the re-investiga- 
tion of old subjects, and at the same time prepares the way for 
attacking new problems. The investigator who neglects to keep 
himself informed of the progress in methods of study, throws 
away his opportunities, and has the vexatious mortification of 
seeing himself outdone and his work superseded by that of more 
skillful hands. : 
So much depends on successful methods of preparing objects 
for investigation, that naturalists are now expected to state pre- 
cisely how their results have been obtained. But the methods 
