272 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
placed at the back left-hand side of the stage, with jointed brass arm 
and ring to carry tlio lens, is the most convenient. For all ordinary 
work Zeiss’s aplanatic lenses X 6 or x 10 are the most useful. 
The simple stand can be inexpensively made by an ordinary carpenter 
or amateur, and many other conveniences and facilities for all kinds of 
dissecting and mounting work are added in the form exhibited. Such 
are, small brass tongues on ordinary brass screws turning down and 
projecting below the front of base-board to prevent the pressure on the 
stand, when working, from moving it towards the back of the working 
table. Drawers are fitted below the base-board to hold slips, covers, 
tools, &c. ; small flat boxes with glass lids to hold mounted needles, 
bristles, brushes, feathers, &c. ; spring clips on back to hold pipettes, 
&c., &c. 
The method of fitting and using the hedgehog hairs and bristles, and 
small pinion feathers of teal, snipe, woodcock, &c., is as follows : — A 
small cap of quill point is loosely fitted to a pointed handle, the bristle 
or feather is passed up as far as required and the handle pressed up in- 
to the quill ; the lower end of the quill may be whipped with waxed 
silk, to prevent splitting.” 
C6) Miscellaneous. 
Millon’s Reagent-* — Mr. S. Le M. Moore recommends, as a better 
way of making Millon’s reagent than the one usually employed, the 
addition of a saturated solution of mercurous nitrate to an equal quan- 
tity of mercuric nitrate as ordinarily sold. No unpleasant smell is caused 
in the process, and the reagent can be made in any quantity as required. 
Forensic Microscopy.f — Dr. L. A. Harding writes : — “ Forensic 
microscopy, like forensic medicine, has a close connection to law ; it 
also deals with cases which are closely interwoven with the administra- 
tion of justice, and with questions that involve the civil rights and social 
duties of individuals, the detection of poisons as well as the treatments 
for the recovery of poison from the poisoned. More and more in the 
history of the criminal courts is the demand occasioned for the application 
of the Microscope, and microscopical toxicology . . . If we measure the 
future by the work and benefits the Microscope has done in the past, it 
will be seen that a very bright prospect is awaiting us indeed. No in- 
strument yet devised by the ingenuity of man can compare with the 
Microscope in its universal application to research, and I will endeavour 
in a brief way to call attention to a few of its special relations to law. 
The direct application of the Microscope to law dates back to about 
1835, and ever since that time it has made a record for itself in convict- 
ing the guilty and protecting the innocent .... In the early age of 
forensic microscopy, its application was simply confined to a few ques- 
tions of criminal law ; but the more it attained perfectness in lenses, the 
excellent means of determining minute measurements, the adoption of 
the spectroscope and numerous valuable mechanical appliances, it has 
claimed so much attention in civil and criminal law that its usefulness 
cannot be denied. Although the Microscope has played a very important 
* Journ. of Bot., xxxi. (1893) p. 51. 
f Science, xx (1892) pp. 242-3. 
