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The reason I do not use any more the Japanese camera is that I have acquired the great American habit of wanting to do everything speedily, and with the least amount of trouble. This camera must be attached to the microscope every time a photo is taken, and then detached, though there is a clamping attachment that can remain on the upper part of the ocular tube. Also a dark room, or at least a changing bag is required for loading and unloading the plate or film holders, unless you use a film pack which also has its disadvantages. Developing and printing is very troublesome in our hot climate, and I have not wished to attempt it. The smaller 35 mm reflex camera that I bought last Christmas is more convenient for my purpose. It is attached to the microscope by means of extension tubes, one of which is hinged so that the camera can be swung out of the way without being detached from the microscope. The film is loaded and unloaded in daylight, and you can make 3 or 4 or half-a-dozen exposures for the cost of one of the larger ones. Of course the 35 mm negatives are useless by themselves, but you can select the best of several exposures and have it enlarged to any reasonable size.
I don't know what the Japanese camera cost when it was new, but a similar one of American make would now cost something like $150. I paid $35 for the Jap several years ago, and I don't suppose I could get more than $20 for it now, so it is not nearly as expensive as you imagine. Anyway I am going to pack it up and send it to you, and if you do not use it you may pass it on to somebody else who might be glad to get it.
I thank you very much for your offer to make microfilm copies of Littkemiller's and other papers, but the microfilm itself is useless to me. Ten years or more ago I obtained microfilm reproductions of Krieger's 'Sunda' paper and some others, and bought a projector to throw an enlarged image on a screen, but you have to sit so far from the screen in order to operate the machine that it is difficult to read the text, so I had enlarged prints made in New Orleans. They cost me considerably more than I could have bought full-size photoprints from some of the large libraries, like that of the Dept. of Agriculture in Washington, which has an enormous collection of botanical works of all kinds. However, I recently stumped them with a request from Ruzicka for copies of the plates in Gutowski's 'Flora glonow okolicz Tarnopol', which they did not possess. I am getting it from the Farlow Library of Harvard University. These photoprints cost only 10 cents per page, far less than the New Orleans shops charge for enlarging a microfilm, or for making direct photostats.
I have acquired a pretty fair collection of literature on tropical and subtropical desmids, in which I am principally interested, partly by purchase, and also through the generosity of Teiling and Krieger, who have sent me many duplicates of old papers. I still lack many of the important European papers, like those of Littkemiller, but I hardly think it worth while for me to spend a lot of money on them, because the tropical desmid-flora differs so radically from the European that even when I find rare species that were originally discovered in Europe, they nearly always differ enough to make new varieties. Such is the case, for instance, with the X. superbum that you recently mentioned, also with Cosm. magnificum and Microasterias tropica var. polonica and many others.
Summer arrived here with a BANG about a week ago. It started with 90° and has crept up every day until today it hit 97.29° F (36° C) an all-time record for May 28th in the history of the New Orleans weather bureau, which has been operating for 75 years. And we shall have these 90° temperatures almost constantly until the end of September. Our business office is cooled with three small electric machines similar to those in an electric refrigerator, and is fairly comfortable. At home I have a 36" attic fan which draws in the outside air through most of the windows of the house, and discharges through the attic; in hot weather this fan runs all night, though I turn it to a lower speed about midnight. In my microscope room downstairs, where I am writing this letter, there is a 12" oscillating fan blowing on me from about 6 feet away, yet I am still perspiring. You may imagine that it is not easy to work under such conditions.
For the last week I have been without any teeth, and have been living on soup and cereals. Fifteen years or more ago I had all my remaining teeth extracted and have work artificial dentures since. They finally wore out, so I asked my dentist what
