The Microscope. 157 



A NEW CEMENT FOR GLYCERINE MOUNTS is described^ by Dr S, 

 Apathy as being composed of equal parts of hard parraffin (melt- 

 ing point 140° F.) and Canada balsam. They are melted together 

 in a porcelain evaporating dish, and then kept heated over a 

 moderate flame until the mass becomes of a golden color, and 

 emits no more turpentine vapors. When cold the mixture is 

 hard, but it can be readily warmed for use. The author says 

 that it is a perfectly safe cement to be used with glycerine. 



C°RRESP°riDmcn 



Editor The Microscope : — 



In your March and April numbers "you publish letters from 

 E. H. Griffith, J. M. Stedman and J. S. Kingsley, claiming to criti- 

 cise some of my teaching in regard to the microscope stand. I did 

 not before know that I am such an abandoned wretch, nor, as these 

 gentlemen seem to intimate, that I am fit only to be carried out and 

 dumped on the scrap-heap. I feel real sorry for myself. I would 

 however suggest to Mr Griffith that the next time he seeks to criti- 

 cise he shall not wrench a single phrase from its setting, put a 

 wrong construction upon it, and then try to demolish things in 

 general. Such sham criticism is unmanly. The sentence which 

 he has garbled for his own advantage is as follows : " On no ac- 

 count would I give an intelligent beginner a stand with a short 

 body tube, without coarse adjustment, fine adjustment, movable 

 stage, or substage, a stand with only a little concave mirror, one 

 eye-piece and a cheap objective.^ " 



Mr Griffith also scolds because I recommend a multiplicity 

 and complexity of parts. Again he quotes a single sentence 

 without the context that entirely changes its meaning. A just 

 critic would have quoted the following : " Buy a microscope that 



3. Zeit. f. Wis. Mikr. 



1, " The Microscope," Dec. 1890, p. 369. 



