NOTES AND QUERIES. 49 

thus on one plate the different amount found necessary to give 
the sharpest possible focus may be found. It will be quite clear 
also that you secure a record of the depth of focus and flatness of 
field of objective under examination—a transverse section of lime 
will be as good as any. You first focus the object as usual on 
focussing screen, which should be rubbed over with a little oil. 
Now put in position revolving shutter, with diagonal opening at a,. 
and give first exposure. Shut off the light, close the dark slide, 
then turn revolving shutter to F; make slight alteration with fine 
adjustment screw, give second exposure, and so on through six 
different exposures. On development you will possess a most 
valuable record.— W. Shipperbottom. 
HapiTaT OF FORAMINIFERA.—Up to a comparatively recent 
period it was thought that the Foraminifera, under ordinary circum- 
stances at any rate, lived on the sea-bottom ; in several isolated 
instances, however, specimens were taken on the surface, and the 
extensive series of gatherings made by Major Owen showed, beyond 
the possibility of doubt, that several species of Globigerina, Orbu- 
lina, and Pulvinulina are pelagic; that they live and multiply at 
the surface, and that, when dead, their skeletons fall to the bottom, 
and form the well-known globigerina-ooze, of which a large part of 
the sea-bottom is composed. 
It then became a question whether the calcareous Foraminifera 
were exclusively pelagic, or whether some forms might not have 
their regular habitat on the sea-bottom, even at great depths, the 
latter opinion being supported by several observers who found the 
sarcode or protoplasm still contained in the shells of dredged 
specimens. 
The facts brought forward by Mr. Brady seem to show very 
clearly that this is actually the case. A tolerably weighty piece of 
negative evidence is afforded by the fact that, after all the extensive 
series of observations which have been made on'the surface fauna, 
only a very few out of the numerous species of /oraminifera have 
been taken out in a tow-net; all the others have been obtained 
exclusively by dredging, that is, from considerable depths. 
DraTH OF Mr. E. W. Binney.—The President of the Manches- 
ter Literary and Philosophical Society and one of the most eminent 
of local geologists, Mr. Edward William Binney, F.R.S., died at his 
house in Cheetham on Monday, Dec. 19th, 1881. Some ten days 
before he had left his Isle of Man residence, situated close to the 
Fort Anne Hotel, in Douglas, for Manchester, and whilst on the 
way he was stricken with paralysis. He remained unconscious to 
the time of his death. Mr. Binney was a native of Morton, in 
Nottinghamshire, and came to Manchester in 1836, when he was 
in his twenty-fourth year. He practised here as a solicitor, but the 


