Apparatus to Facilitate the Processes of 
Fixing and Hardening Material. 
BY WILLIAM C. STEVENS. 
The following method of carrying material through the processes 
of fixing and hardening has been of great utility in dealing with 
very small objects, such as root tips, sporangia, and young flower 
buds, and in keeping separate material of successive stages of 
development. The method is also useful in the hands of students, 
since it economizes space and material and otherwise facilitates 
processes which are always difficult to the beginner. 
The material to be fixed and hardened is cut in the smallest 
pieces compatible with the purpose of the study, and then put into 
cloth-bottomed glass buckets which are made as follows: Cut pieces 
3 cm. long from glass tubing of about 1 cm. in diameter. To do 
this uniformly and easily pro- 
vide a guage block, as shown 
in Fig. 1. A hole, a, is bored 
in the block close to the bot- 
tom, just large enough to 
admit the tube easily and with 
a depth about 2 mm. less than 
the length of the piece to be 
Fig. 1. cut off. Nail on the guage 
strip, b, so that when the glass cutter is held against it the cutting 
wheel will stand directly over the glass tubing when inserted in the 
hole for cutting off. With the fingers of one hand placed against 
the face of the block which is opposite the hole, press the glass 
cutter with the thumb against the guage strap and down on the 
tubing. Then turn the tubing with the other hand until the cutter 
has encircled it, but no more, for the cutting wheel will be injured 
by retracing the rough surface of the cut already made. Withdraw 
the tubing from the guage and.at one place deepen the cut with a 
file. To separate the piece thus marked off grasp the tubing with 
both hands, with the thumbs opposing the fingers, as one would 
(107) KAN. UNIV. QUAR., VOL. VII. NO. 2, APRIL, 1898, SERIES A. 
