1885.] 
Notes. 
ilg 
At the November meeting of the Royal Microscopical Society 
an improved form of Gas Microscope was exhibited by the inven- 
or, Mr. Lewis Wright. The performance greatly surpassed in 
defimtion and rendering of colour anything that has hitherto been 
p oduced. In addition to objects specially prepared by Mr. 
SeV f ra selec ^ ed b y Dr. Carpenter were handed to the 
exhibitor and successfully projeded on the screen. The objec- 
tive which has worked best is one of 8-ioths of an inch, made 
with larger glasses than is usual for microscopic purposes, and 
corrected solely for the purpose of projeding objeds upon a 
screen. The field is flat, and the definition good to the circum- 
erence of the disc. No doubt still greater improvements will be 
etteded, as the inventor has worked upon a new principle. 
Hitherto ordinary objedives have been employed, but although 
they give good images in the comparatively small fields used in 
photo-micrography, they are generally deficient in light and defi- 
nition when very great amplification is attempted. The present 
advance will prove of immense value to ledurers in the demon- 
stration of histological subjeds, as exhibitions on the screen have 
been confined to photo-micrographs enlarged by a superior 
magic-lantern. r 
After a late tempest, about five hundred dead crows were 
lound on the Norwegian coast, near Bergen. It is supposed that 
the birds had been at roost on the small rocky holms and had 
been suddenly overwhelmed by the storm. This is a comment 
on the notion that the lower animals have an instinctive fore- 
knowledge of the weather. 
. D- T- Nelson, in “ Science,” gives an account of a pump- 
kin, fleshly gathered and perfectly sound, which, when cut open 
was found to contain seeds which had already germinated The* 
caulicles were from one to three inches in length, while some of 
the rootlets were over seven inches. The cotyledons, wherever 
iiee from the seed-covering, were green in colour, and spread so 
as to expose the growing plumule. In one case the second leaves 
were partly unfolded. 
M. Chairy (“ Comptes Rendus ”) concludes, after a long series 
of experiments, that the medium in which bacteria live has only 
a slight influence on the proportion of poison necessary to prevent 
their development or to destroy the spores. The mass of the 
bacteria existing in the medium has a marked influence. Che- 
mical agents act the more energetically the more acid their 
character, which may perhaps be deduced from the fact that 
bacteria tend to render their medium alkaline. 
According to G. Lindstrom a scorpion found in the Upper 
oilurian of the island of Gothland is the most ancient terrestrial 
animal yet discovered. Its four pairs of thoracic feet are pointed 
like those of the embryos of many other Tracheata and of 
arnmals such as Campodea. This form of feet does not occur in 
the fossil scorpions of the Carboniferous ages. 
