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On a New Form of Section-Cutting Machine. 

 By Henry F. Hailes. 



(Read Jan. 26th, 1877. ) 



Plate XXIII. 



I wish to bring before the members of the Quekett Club a machine 

 for cutting microscopic sections, which I have devised, and which, I 

 think, may be of some interest to them. 



For some time past I have been very dissatisfied with the sections 

 that I have had occasion to cut. This was probably in a great 

 measure due to my own want of skill, but still it appeared to me 

 that any mechanical contrivance for this purpose must be very im- 

 perfect if it did not, to a considerable extent, compensate for any 

 want of skill in the operator. 



Not being able to meet with any machine that in my opinion ful- 

 filled the requirements of the case (most of the recent improvements 

 having been made in the shape of " freezing microtomes," for cutting 

 anatomical and other soft sections), I set to work to see if I could 

 contrive some sort of machine that would enable me to cut sections 

 of various materials with ease and precision. 



My first attempt was with a rotary knife. This was mounted 

 upon a spindle in the same way as a circular saw, and run upon dead 

 centres. It was furnished with a bed, and with an adjustible fence, 

 much after the fashion of an ordinary saw. It worked very well — 

 but, in the first place, I found that, independently of its being very 

 troublesome and expensive to make, it was necessary to construct 

 another special machine, in order to grind and keep in proper order 

 the edge of the circular knife. 



In the next place, I found that it required a very considerable 

 jjower in order to drive it at a suitable speed, and it could therefore 

 only be run in a heavy lathe or its equivalent. As heavy machinery 

 and microscopic work seemed to me to be rather incompatible, I 

 gave up my efforts in this direction, and turned my attention to the 

 so-called " Topping machine," in order to see if I could modify it 



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