120 



Astronomical and Nautical Collections. 



V. Remarks on Hones. Addressed to the Editor by a Correspondent, 



Sir, 



An error in a Table of Logarithms may, indeed, chance to cause 

 some trouble to a nautical and astronomical computer, once or twice 

 in the course of twenty years ; but a bad razor is a daily annoy- 

 ance to seamen, as well as landsmen, to astronomers as well as 

 gastronomers ; and I therefore think it right to communicate to you 

 some observations which have saved me a minute or two on an 

 average every day of my life, for the last two or three years, and 

 have spared me, perhaps, 100 out of 500 alternate motions of the 

 hand and arm. 



I have long been in the habit of using soap and water with a 

 hone, in preference to the oil which is commonly employed ; though 

 I still doubt whether a constant immersion in oil might not, after 

 all, keep the hone in the best possible order. But in any way that 

 the hone is kept dry, its surface seems, in the course of a few 

 months' use, to become hard or clogged, so that it will cut but very 

 slowly, notwithstanding it may, at first, have possessed the requi- 

 site perfection of being soft enough to be scratched by a pin. 



The remedy is to give it, every two or three months, a neio 

 surface, by a piece of common coarse whetstone, such as is used 

 for scythes ; and immediately after this renovation, a razor may be 

 set in one minute as effectually as in ten by the same hone before 

 the operation. 



I am, Sir, 



Your very obedient servant, 

 London, Jan, 1, 1825. Misopogon. 



