State Microscopical Society of Illinois. Organized as the Microscopical Club Dec. 15th, 1868. Chartered under the present title March 31st, 1869. The stated objects of this society are "affording assistance and encouragement to microscopical investigations, by promoting that ready intercourse between those engaged in such pursuits, that not only are great advantages mutually gained, and an increasing interest in microscopical pursuits largely maintained, but also information of the most valuable kind disseminated and perpetuated." The Society has active, corresponding and honorary memberships. Its regular meetings for scientific work are held on the second and fourth Friday evenings of each month from October to May, inclusive. The stated meetings at which secular business is transacted are the annual meeting at which officers are elected, occurring on the fourth Friday in April, and the semi-annual meeting on the fourth Friday in October. The society, previous to the fire, held annually a Conversazione to which guests were invited, and at which efforts were made to have a large exhibition of instruments, apparatus and specimens. The last conversazione was held in Farwell Hall, March 17th, 1871. "Over one hundred and twenty instruments were exhibited, with an immense variety of objects, to an assemblage of at least three thousand people." The society publishes, under the supervision of a publishing committee, a quarterly journal of microscopy and the allied natural sciences, called The Lens. Its initial number is dated January, 1872. It it an octavo of 64 pages and is most ably and efficiently edited. It publishes the transactions of the society, and is chiefly devoted to the interests of the organization, but contains: Original contributions, consisting of papers read before some scientific society, or communicated directly; original papers on the natural history of the Mississippi valley and the far west; a resumé of foreign reviews; notices of microscopical publications, and descriptions of microscopes and apparatus, correspondence, etc., etc. OFFICERS FOR 1872-3. President-S. A. Briggs. 1st Vice-President-H. H. Babcock. 2d Vice-President-Charles Biggs. Recording Secretary-Joseph Adams. Corresponding Secretary-O. S. Wescott. Additional Trustees-E. H. Sargent, Chas. G. Smith, M. D., S. J. Jones, M. D., H. A. Johnson, M. D., and A. E. Ebert. Publishing Committee-E. H. Sargent, Chas. Adams, O. S. Wescott. Editor of the Lens-S. A. Briggs. The meetings since the fire have been held in the Michigan Avenue Baptist Church. Permanent rooms will probably soon be procured. MEDICAL COLLEGES. Rush Medical College. Temporarily located Cor. 18th and Arnold sts. Founded in 1842. The thirtieth annual course of lectures commences in the college building, Oct. 2nd, 1872, and continues twenty weeks. The recently constructed magnificent college building was destroyed by the fire of Oct. 9th. Preparations were at once commenced to erect a new structure on the old site; but the action of the commissioners of Cook County, in determining to permanently locate the County Hospital elsewhere than its present location, influenced the Trustees of the College to postpone for a year the erection of a permanent building, that it might be located near the Hospital, in |