GLYCERINE JELLY. 223 



camphor has been kept is a good mounting medium ; some 

 preporers, however, add spirits of wine in the proportion 

 of one draehm to eleven drachms of water ; others add to 

 these saltpetre, two grains to the ounce of fluid. The 

 mounting-fluid should be prepared and allowed to settle, 

 when the major part can be poured off clear a much 

 better mode than filtering, as particles of the paper are 

 apt to get mixed with the liquid. 



F. M. Bimmington's Glycerine Jelly has become an 

 established preparation, and one found to possess many 

 advantages over Canada balsam, and some other media 

 used for the same purpose, in the facility with which 

 objects can be mounted, and efficiently preserved, and the 

 transparency it gives to many animal and vegetable struc- 

 tures. Its antiseptic powers are sufficient to prevent 

 changes in any object immersed in it, if not too bulky. 

 It is especially adapted for mounting alga3, fungi, vegetable 

 and animal tissues, urinary deposits (as casts, epithelium, 

 crystals), also anatomical specimens, starch granules, des- 

 midiacese, diatomacea3, &c. Objects to be mounted in this 

 medium only require to be soaked in weak alcohol for a 

 time, greater or less, as may be necessary, for the purpose 

 of dissolving out any soluble matter, or for driving out 

 air entangled in the cellular meshes. When it is thought 

 that this has been accomplished, the object is laid on a 

 slide and freed from superfluous moisture, the slide gently 

 warmed, and a quantity of the jelly, deemed sufficient for 

 the purpose, laid by the side of it, and made to touch it. 

 It will thus be immersed ; the cover, previously warmed, is 

 to be laid upon it, and gently pressed. The slide may now 

 be laid aside and finished by running it round with varnish. 



The jelly should be liquefied by holding the bottle at 

 some distance above a lamp, or by dipping it into hot 

 water. No more than what is necessary need be liquefied, 

 and it should never be made hot. 



For certain delicate organisms, as the desmidiaceae and 

 diatomaceae, whose plasma may be affected by too dense 

 a medium, the jelly may be diluted one-quarter or one- 

 third with camphor-water. 



For mounting pathological or injected preparations, the 

 following medium will be found to answer very well : 



