A. EARLAND ON FORAMINIFERA. ill 



thoroughly cleaned it can be tipped out into a 'plate and the 

 operation renewed with a fresh supply. 



The cleaned dredgings can now be thoroughly dried with a very 

 gentle heat, and if the amount of material is small, it can be 

 examined under the microscope as it is. If, however, material is 

 abundant, or if you desire to separate the lighter and more 

 delicate forms from the heavy, it must be floated. The glass jar 

 must be nearly filled with water, and a few spoonfuls of the 

 sand sprinkled slowly on the top. The lighter specimens, especially 

 the Miliolidse, the Lagenida?, and the Globigerinidae, will float, and 

 can be poured off into a sieve of very fine muslin. The heavy 

 forms, with the sand, etc., will sink ; but if desired the lightest 

 of these heavy forms can be to some extent separated from the 

 others by filling the jar with water and pouring it off again into 

 a sieve before they have time to settle. The floatings and 

 washings must then be dried separately and sifted into different 

 sizes. 



When I am washing small quantities of material I generally 

 remove the floatings as I wash the material. This is done not 

 so much to save trouble as to secure delicate forms, which might 

 get broken or lost in the process of washing. They can be re- 

 moved from the surface of the water in the sieve by means of a 

 cigarette paper, to which the forams adhere when it is dropped 

 on the water. The papers can be dried on a plate, and the forams 

 can then be brushed off with a camel-hair brush, and collected 

 in a tube. By this means I have frequently obtained perfect 

 specimens of spinous and other delicate forms, which are otherwise 

 nearly always broken in the washing. 



Fossil materials, such as sands and earths, may be prepared 

 in the same way as I have described ; but in the case of clays 

 and shales the material requires preliminary treatment to ensure 

 its disintegration. The material should be obtained in lumps of 

 not more than one inch cube, and these must be slowly and 

 thoroughly dried, avoiding great heat, which would harden the 

 material. The lumps must then be placed in a basin, covered 

 with boiling water, and allowed to stand until thoroughly broken 

 up. This may take a day or more. The soft material is then 

 cleaned in the usual manner, care being taken not to put too 

 much at a time into the sieves. In selecting material, samples 

 should be taken from various horizons, as the fauna is often very 



