MICROSCOPICAL SECTION. 
First Ordinary Meeting, Session 1864-5. 
17th October, 1864. 
Joseph Sidebotham, Esq., President of the Section, in 
the Chair. 
The President stated that he regretted to have to inform 
the members of the total failure of the efforts made during 
the last summer to provide them with fresh cotton pods for 
the purpose of investigating into the structure of the cotton 
fibre. This was partly owing to ravages of the common 
greenhouse pest, the red spider, and partly unaccounted for 
as the plants had flowered but not fruited. He called the 
attention of the meeting to the compact form of microscope 
made by Mr. Dancer to facilitate seaside and other investiga- 
tions, where portability, combined with means of using the 
higher powers, was the chief desideratum. A specimen was 
on the table, and he and other members could bear testimony 
to its advantages. 
He also called the attention of the members to the many 
beautiful forms of insects and vegetable life which were 
frequently neglected as being too small to be examined by 
the unaided eye, and yet too large for the ordinary powers of 
the microscope. He assured the members the use of the 
present three or two inch object glasses would reveal to them 
many objects of surpassing beauty, which had hitherto only 
been studied in detail. 
With regard to the use of such powers as the -reth or 
th, he thought they seemed to have reached the limits of 
