HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



59 



the island. It strikes one so suddenly and effectively 

 on reaching the brow of the hill. A sharp descent 

 of the northern side soon brought me down the other 

 side into the bay, where I found the strata rather 

 different from those of Alum Bay. One character was 

 much the same : the beds had a high dip as far up as 

 the lowest limestone, but this (the Bembridge in this 

 instance, the Lower Headon in Alum Bay) rapidly 

 became horizontal. The Plastic and London clays 

 had much the same aspect in the two bays, the 

 former giving a beautiful hue to the water, where 

 washed up by it, forming a fine contrast with its green 

 colour on the chalk. The Lower Bagshot beds, too, 

 were sandy, but showed no trace of a leaf bed. A 

 conglomerate of black flint pebbles brought in the 

 Bracklesham beds, so well described in Mr. Fisher's 

 paper.* 



Here I collected some time, but found the fossils 

 exceedingly difficult to preserve. The Nummulite 

 bed, however, yielded a splendid number of weathered- 

 out specimens. 



The Barton clay and Upper Bagshot sands follow, 

 the latter containing unstable sandy casts of mollusca, 

 which, however, are not easy to find. 



The Headon appears under a very different aspect 

 from that at Alum Bay, the Lower Headon consisting 

 of clays and lignites, but with the usual fossils. 



Under theMiddle Headon and forming its basement 

 bed is a marine band containing many shells, not 

 in a very good state of preservation. Among them 

 are Cardita deltoidea. Valuta spinosa, Ostrea fla- 

 bellata, Cytherea iiicrassata. With the luck which 

 followed me all through my excursion, I found these 

 beds exposed on the strand, and reaped an abundant 

 harvest from them. The beds above, too, were well 

 exposed ; among them the Venus bed was readily 

 distinguishable from the number of Cytherea incras- 

 sata. The Upper Headon, too, was without any 

 limestone, and consisted of sands and clays, and was 

 followed by the mottled marls and clays of the 

 Osborne series, with their thin band of yellow lime- 

 stone and bands of comminuted shells. 



The Bembridge succeeded, with great terraces of 

 massive limestone, which weathered into curious 

 tabular lumps, masses of which formed the capping 

 of rude earth pillars formed of the stiff marls below. 



The Bembridge marls, with much their usual 

 character, follow and complete the section to 

 Watchhouse Point, forming the highest bed found 

 on the eastern side of the island. A climb back 

 over Bembridge Down when it was getting very 

 dusky closed my week's work in the Isle of Wight, 

 and I cannot do better than recommend any young 

 geologist who has a week to spare to go and use his 

 hammer in the Isle of Wight. He will find there 

 plenty of fossils, plenty of rocks, plenty of work, 

 plenty of walking, and, after his day's work, plenty of 



* Quart. Journ, Geol. Soc. xviii. 65. 



comfort by the fireside of his inn amongst hospitable 

 if homely people. 



In conclusion, I must take this opportunity of 

 acknowledging with many thanks the kind help 

 afforded me by Mr. H. Keeping on the first two 

 days, for without his help I should have been much 

 longer in thoroughly learning to recognise the succes- 

 sion of the Tertiary rocks. 



HOW TO MAKE' WAX CELLS. 



YOU lately drew attention to some remarks I 

 made at a recent meeting of the Manchester 

 Microscopical Society, on a novel method of making 

 cells of wax on microscopical slides. The system I 

 described is the contrivance of Mr. F. Barnard, of the 

 Microscopical Society of Victoria, and was brought 

 to my notice by the Rev. I. I. Halley, of Melbourne. 

 I should be obliged if you would state in an early 

 number that the credit of the new method is due to 

 Mr. Barnard ; and as a description of it may be inter- 

 esting to some of your readers, I append some extracts 

 from the original paper: — "The cells can be made 

 of beeswax, white wax, paraffin, or stearine, or a 

 mixture of these substances. Take a small piece of 

 wax, according to the size and depth of the cell 

 required, place it in the middle of a glass slip, warm 

 it thoroughly over the flame of a spirit lamp, then 

 press it upon the slide perfectly flat and even, with a 

 smooth surface. This is easily done by means of a 

 gauge, made thus : — on each end of a slip of glass, 

 cement with balsam small pieces of paper, card, 

 or glass of the thickness of the required cell, 

 moisten the under side, and press upon the warm wax 

 till down as far as the ends will allow ; by moving 

 this gauge about a little, you will get a tolerably 

 smooth and level cake of wax on the slide, the thick- 

 ness of the gauge. When cool, place the slip on a 

 turn-table, and with a penknife, or other convenient 

 tool, turn out the centre to the size required ; thus a 

 cell is formed, which it is necessary to clean, as the 

 marks of the knife will remain on the bottom. This 

 is easily done with a small rag moistened with 

 benzine. No cement is required. The cover glass 

 is simply warmed and placed on the wax cell, to 

 which it adheres quite firmly. The cells can be made 

 any colour by mixing dry colours with the wax. This 

 system is especially useful for making deep cells. By 

 covering the slide with a solution of gum traga- 

 canth, to which a small quantity of sugar has been 

 added, allowing it to dry before the wax is placed on, 

 the cell, after it has been turned up and finished, can 

 be detached by immersing the slide in water. It can 

 then be placed on the centre of a slightly heated clean 

 slide, to which it will firmly adhere. This obviates 

 the necessity of cleaning the slide with benzole, and 

 is the best method for transparent or fluid mounts." 

 From this description it will be seen that the advan- 



