0 a ae 
THE STRUCTURE OF THE CHARACEA. 349 

the specimens should be soaked for some days in a mixture of 
glycerine and water in equal parts, to which has been added a little 
: methylated spirit, and care must be used in putting on the cover- 
glass that no air is enclosed in the jelly. 
: To clean off the superfluous jelly the slide should be nicely 
: washed under the tap with an old tooth brush, ringing with one or 
two coats of white zinc cement, immediately it is dry, to prevent 
: any further contraction at the edges. The best white cement I 
: have found to be the following, from a formula given me by Capt. 
P. G. Cunliffe, F.R.M.S. :—Grind 1 oz. of Oxide of Zinc in a 
mortar with sufficient gold-size to form a thick paste ; then dissolve 
1 oz. of Gum Damar in half-a-pint of Benzole, filter, and add 
gradually to above. 
The advantages of this cement are: ease of manipulation, its 
non-liability to run in, and the addition of the gold-size prevents 
that extreme brittleness when old, so frequently complained of in 
the ordinary white cement. 
WILLIAM STANLEY. 
THE STRUCTURE OF THE CHARACE. 
By CuHar.tes Baltey, F.L.S. 
A Paper read before the Leeuwenhoek Microscopical Club, Manchester, 
27th October, 1882. 
I.—AFFINITIES. 
fier plants constitute a natural order, or something higher, 
which, in a popular sense, must be considered a comparatively 
little known group. They are met with in fresh or brackish water, 
and are variable in size and habit. They are not recommended to 
our notice by any of their uses in the arts, nor by their employment 
in pharmacy or as food for either man or beast. They possess no 
common English name by which the child may distinguish them 
from other denizens of our brooks and lakes. They do not enter 
into legendary or fairy story like the hyacinth or the toadstool. 
They have never served as the badge of rival tribes or warriors 
like the broom or the rose. No grateful perfume is distilled from 
their cells. No poet like Milton or Shakspere has sung "their 
praises or wedded their name to some beautiful conceit or fancy. 
No lover has ventured to associate them with youth and beauty, 
grace and tenderness, and they never enter into “the language of 
flowers.” Yet the man of science has shown them to possess a 
