This information is available from a letter written by Miss 

 Ware to Prof. Oakes Ames, the second director of the Botanical Museum. 

 After having spent a day watching Rudolph at work, she wrote: 

 "There is additional labor which I did not see. Annealing leaves 

 the glass glittering and shining, and that appearance he destroys 

 by the application of a certain varnish; and he applies this to the 

 flowers also after stamens and pistils are set. 1 ' There may well be 

 any number of models made using this newer method, but to 

 determine this would require very close examination. Based on 

 the information now available, there is no record concerning the 

 number of models that were produced in this way. The one 

 exception mentioned earlier concerns the model of the Maple 

 with the autumn coloring. We have letters about that model 

 written by Rudolph in which he relates difficulties encountered 

 to produce a glass of the proper red for the leaves: he wrote that 

 the model had been fashioned almost completely in the new 

 manner, except that the veins on the backs of the leaves had to 

 be, as he put it, "helped with cold painting" — a reference to the 

 application of the glue-gum-pigment material. 



We hope that in the future it will be possible to analyze this 

 material. If that were done, it would be possible to duplicate the 

 surface material and thus restore areas of some of the models 

 where the material has been completely detached and thus 

 improve the appearance of these models. 



Some models show more damage than the lifting or separa- 

 tion of the coating material from the glass surface. Almost with- 

 out exception it is the leaf structure which has been damaged 

 beyond repair. In these cases, the leaves are almost completely 

 fragmented. It has been suggested that this destruction might be 

 due to three factors: one is the strength of the coating material 

 when it contracts; another is the thinness of the underlying glass; 

 and the third is possibly the age of the glass. The only remedy 

 would be complete replacement of the damaged part. Since glass 

 workers able to do this very difficult work are probably unavail- 

 able, the only possibility would be to make a plastic replica of 

 the missing part. This solution is completely feasible. Prelimi- 

 nary investigations along this line are now being undertaken. 



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