
NOTICES OF MEETINGS. LT 

NOTICES OF MEETINGS. 
CARLISLE MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY.—This Society held a meeting 
on Wednesday evening, November 23rd, to hear the inaugural address from 
the President, the Rev. Canon Carr, F.R.M.S., vicar of Dalston. There was a 
very large attendance. 
Canon Carr, who was received with applause, first congratulated the members 
on having associated themselves in a society having for its object the promotion 
of microscopical research. His only regret was that a more able member had 
not been selected to fill the position of its first President. However, he would 
do his best to promote the interests of the Society, and he trusted that as time 
went on we should find their organisation would result in practical benefit to 
all. Standing side by side with that popular and useful Society, the Carlisle 
Scientific Society and Field Naturalist’s Club, they had work of a somewhat 
similar character to do. Of that Society the general purpose is to promote 
observation and to increase our knowledge of the larger objects in nature, 
chiefly those connected with geology and botany. The object of the Carlisle 
Microscopical Society is to pursue research where the other stops—to ex- 
amine into the minute structure of objects which are either invisible to the 
unassisted eye, or which, though visible, have details too small to be investigated 
without optical appliances. (Applause.) In those researches they had great 
advantage over those who had preceded them. The microscope had of late 
years been brought to marvellous perfection, and it was still improving as an 
instrument of precision. All that our ancestors had to use i the examination 
of minute objects was practically the simple lens, followed in time by Wollas- 
ton’s doublet. He then proceeded to describe the various instruments which 
had been introduced in recent years, his remarks, of course, being of a technical 
nature and more particularly intended for the members. The simple micro- 
scope, with one or more achromatic objectives, and one or two Huyghenian 
eye-pieces, mounted on a stand and furnished with a mirror underneath to 
reflect the light on the object, is all that is really essential for simple observa- 
tion. Many improvements had been made in the stand itself, and many 
ingenious accessories introduced to facilitate the use and to increase the 
capabilities of the instrument. He then described in detail the binocular 
arrangement of Mr. Wenham, the concentrically rotating stage, and the swing- 
ing substage. Although the accomplished and experienced microscopist could 
by the accommodating power of the eye, and by successively focussing on 
different planes of the object, obtain even with the monocular instrument a very 
correct idea of its solid form, yet it was certain that the stereoscopic binocular 
microscope gave to the ordinary observer a much more accurate idea of the 
solidity of the object than the monocular instrument could give him, provided 
no optical sources of error come in to disturb the correctness of the image. 
Though some of the accessories to the microscope were expensive luxuries, it 
might be a satisfaction to them to know that save for some exceptional purpose, 
the most skilful microscopists make very little use of them. A story was told 
of an experienced physician who, when asked what remedies he employed, 
replied that as a young man he had perhaps a dozen remedies for every disease, 
but that now he had more nearly one remedy for a dozen diseases. Similarly 
the accomplished microscopist cares little, as a rule, for ingenious and costly 
appliances. True, with many of them fine results could be obtained, but it 
was equally true that by the skilful use of the simplest apparatus almost if not 
quite as much may be done. (Applause.) When they considered that the 
great researches and discoveries of Ehrenberg and others were made with 
glasses which would -scareely rank with the most mediocre of those now used, 
they would see how very much might be done without incurring the cost of 
