69 
MICROSCOPICAL SECTION. 
1 8 th March, 1861. 
A communication from Captain Anderson, RJVI.S. 
Canada , written at sea on his homeward voyage, excited 
considerable interest. He states that Dr. Wallich’s pamphlet 
would be communicated to the Boston Society of Natural 
History by Professor Agassiz, who was particularly interested 
in the Ophiocoma found at so great a depth. The Professor 
is now engaged in preparing a work upon the natural history 
of that class of echinoderms, which he has studied for many 
years, and claims to have the finest collection of those animals 
in existence, made on the coasts from Greenland and Labrador 
to Mexico and round Cape Horn to California. Since the 
publication, in 1848, of the “Principles of Zoology, M by 
Agassiz and Gould (a copy of which is presented to the 
Section), the Professor has ascertained that the system of 
tubes and water pores, described at page 1 23, exists in all 
animals which much vary their depths of water in the sea, and 
in the herring they may be seen with the naked eye along 
the side of the neck. 
With reference to the removal of tallow from soundings. 
Dr. Hayes, the Assayist for the State of Massachusets, stated 
to Captain Anderson that heated turpentine, poured amongst 
the soundings, will remove all the tallow with it through filter- 
ing paper ; the operation should be twice repeated, and the 
residue finally washed with sulphuric ether. 
Dr. J. Bacon presented a copy of his Report upon the 
Chemical Composition and Microscopical Characters of the 
Pearl, said to have been formed in the interior of a cocoa nut 
at Singapore, in the possession of Frederick Bush, Esq., and 
exhibited by Dr. Winslow.* 
Captain Anderson, in a very able manner, gives the outline 
of a plan which has occurred to him for rendering available t< 
* Page 290, vol. vii., Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural His 
for 1SG0. 
