NOTES AND MEMORANDA. 
259 
millimetres thick taken off, which can be afterwards used for pinning 
small objects on before placing them in the box. 
The dried (dehydrated) pieces can now be cut by the microtome 
into sections mm. thick, and the section placed at once on the 
glass slide, where it may be treated as usual with oil of cloves and 
balsam. If the mass is too hard, it can be softened to any degree by 
laying it in water. It is far better, however, to let it lie before 
cutting for a day in oil of cloves (or turpentine), where it becomes 
transparent as amber, but at the same time a little softer, though 
still hard enough to be fixed in the microtome. 
The imbedding substance appears under the microscope either 
perfectly homogeneous or in the worst case very finely granulated. 
The advantages of this method are that complete series of sections 
can be permanently produced without much loss of time, and without 
the difterent parts of the object being removed from their position, 
whilst the transparency allows of uninterrupted observation of the 
position of the object. Moreover, the object need not be so carefully 
hardened as is required in paraffin. The method is strongly recom- 
mended for calcareous and siliceous sponges as well as for worms and 
the embryos of fowls.* 
New American Journal of Microscopy . — Professor Eomyn Hitchcock, 
of New York, announces that it is intended to issue, under his editor- 
ship, a quarterly journal, with the title of the ‘ American Quarterly 
Microscopical Journal.’ It is to contain, “besides original articles 
from prominent writers, reprints and translations of the most important 
papers found in current English, French, and German publications, 
the Transactions of the New York Microscopical Society, and a com- 
plete synopsis of all microscopical matters ; and to this end abstracts 
will be given of every article published during each quarter to which 
the editor has access, or where abstracts are inadmissible, titles of 
the papers will be given.” The journal is to be “ absolutely inde- 
pendent of any business enterprise, and published entirely in the 
interests of microscopical science.” 
Anaerohiosis of Micro-Organisms . — The following note by M. 
Gunning was read at the French Academy on 1st July: — At the 
meeting of the Academy of Sciences of Amsterdam of the 29th April, 
1877, I pointed out that ferrous ferrocyanide was a reagent very 
sensible to oxygen, and demonstrated by this means that the apparatus 
and media ordinarily in use for the culture of micro-organisms could 
not be exempt from oxygen by the methods recommended for that 
end. 
These observations threw a legitimate doubt on the experiments 
on which the doctrine of anaerohiosis is based, and I have naturally 
been led to repeat these experiments under conditions which allow this 
new point of view to be taken account of. Admitting the practical im- 
possibility of obtaining spaces where the absolute absence of oxygen 
could be proved, I have used glass flasks hermetically sealed, in 
* Prof. Sclenka, in ‘ Zoologischer Anzeiger,’ vol. i. p. 130. 
