HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



133 



ACCESSORIES TO THE MICROSCOPE. 

 A Growing Slide. 



THERE are very few, if any, microscopists who 

 have not at some time or another felt the need 

 of a thoroughly reliable growing slide, one which 

 would permit of an unintermittent and ample supply 

 of aerated water being equally distributed around the 

 objects under observation, and at the same time 

 permit of its being placed upon the table of the 

 microscope for observation, &.c., for any period of 



number of objects vegetating on the same slide, as 

 the worker may desire. 



To enable the reader to understand its structure, I 

 would refer him to Fig. 97 ; and if he wish to make 

 one for himself, he may readily do so, if he possess a 

 sixpenny wheel glass cutter, or diamond, some sheet 

 glass, and marine glue, mechanical skill being not an 

 item for consideration. 



Fig. 97- — A is a piece of ordinary glass, such as is 

 used for common windows, 6 inches long by 2 inches 

 in width, which constitutes the slide ; b b are two 



Fig. 96.— A, slide ; b b, sides of slide ; c, reservoir ; d, cover to slide ; e e, shoulders on cover; 

 r, blotting-paper with cells and covers. 



Fig. 97. 



Fig. 98. 



time, without injury by exposure, or inconvenience. 

 To the student working in algae, and other micro- 

 scopical plants, such a slide as here described is 

 indispensable. I have therefore taken up my pen to 

 afford such students the benefit of the description of 

 one which I have made, and had in constant use for 

 some months past, and which, being simplicity itself 

 in structure, I can most confidently recommend as 

 being perfectly satisfactory in its results, whilst 

 affording the further advantage of accommodating any 



slips of the same kind of glass, 4f inches long by 

 I inch in width, cemented edgeways unto A at about: 

 \ of an inch from the edge (the use of these will be 

 explained hereafter) ; C is a piece of glass tubing about 

 2^ inches long by about Ij inch in diameter — mine 

 is a portion of an ordinary reading lamp chimney, 

 and as I am writing principally for the benefit of 

 amateurs, I will explain how to cut, or rather to 

 break, the tubing where he desires. First file a clean 

 cut around the tube, then apply a highly-heated iron 



