CLEANING LARGE SKELETONS BY MACERATING. 



MACERATING AND CLEANING. The maceration of a skeleton is a 

 question of time as compared with eternity. Procure a wooden 

 barrel or keg large enough to contain the entire skeleton, 

 knock the head out and see that there are no nails, nor any 

 other metal anywhere on the inside to stain and discolor the 

 bones. Pack the skeleton closely in the empty barrel, fill it up 

 with water and let it stand. In a few days its offence, like 

 Othello's, " is rank, and smells to heaven." But that is no mat- 

 ter, provided your barrel has no neighbors. Let it stand for 

 four months, six mouths, a year, or tw r o years if need be, until 

 every particle of fleshy matter on the bones has disintegrated 

 and become a pulp. Keep the barrel covered, and when the 

 water evaporates and the bones on top are about to be exposed, 

 fill up with water and keep the bones always covered. If a 

 skeleton is very bloody, it is well to soak it for a week in salt 

 water to dissolve the blood-corpuscles. Then it may be macer- 

 ated as directed above. The odor will be horrible, but if you 

 are going to study bones you must not mind that. 



When you find upon examining the bones that the flesh has 

 totally disappeared from them, leaving them dark-colored or 

 even black, but without any fleshy matter upon them, they are 

 then to be taken out. Pour off the water, place the entire con- 

 tents of the barrel in a large sieve-bottomed tray, and wash the 

 bones thoroughly. When that has been done, put them in a 

 large tub of boiling water, and keep them in warm water while 

 you scrape all the bones, one by one, with your bone-scraper, 

 and scrub them with a stiff brash, going over the entire sur- 

 face, and washing them meanwhile in the warm water. The in- 

 terior of each of the large leg bones must be washed out with a 

 strong syringe, and every cavity in the vertebrae must be care- 

 fully scraped out. 



BLEACHING. Having carefully scraped and washed the bones, 

 the entire skeleton is now to be soaked for a short time, the 

 length of time varying according to the size and age of tin- 

 skeleton, in a solution of chloride of lime and water. To make 

 this of the proper strength, dissolve about two or three ounces 

 of chloride of lime in a barrel of water. Bones of young or im- 

 mature animals must not be left in this solution as long as 

 those of old specimens. Young bones are soft and porous, and 



