36 MICROSCOPY FOR BEGINNERS. 



Until recently I supposed this little affair was com- 

 mon property, and that the principle on which it acts 

 was understood by everybody. But when I called on 

 a gentleman, a member of a scientific society, to obtain 

 some water in which certain plants were growing, he ex- 

 pressed surprise at the performance, and called his wife 

 to witness a new and curious method of taking up wa- 

 ter with nothing but a glass tube and a finger. His as- 

 tonishment was amusing ; but how much more so was 

 that of a druggist who had a teaspoonful of deposit at 

 the bottom of a conical glass vessel with a quart of wa- 

 ter above it, and who, after running about for bottles 

 and jars to hold this water, which he thought must be 

 poured off, returned to find the deposit removed, and 

 in a small phial in my pocket, the quart of water re- 

 maining undisturbed. " Why," he said, " that is strange. 

 I never saw the like before. How did you do it ?" 

 - It is often convenient to have several dipping-tubes, 

 some straight, others drawn out to a point, and some 

 curved so as to be readily directed into a narrow corner. 

 A glass tube is easily pulled out to a fine extremity, 

 or variously curved when softened in an alcohol flame. 

 But a spirit-lamp may not always be within reach, and 

 is not necessary, for the student can make a Bnnsen 

 burner almost without cost, and use it successfully if 

 his home is supplied with illuminating gas. Prof. Aus- 

 tin C. Apgar, in Science News and Boston Journal of 

 Chemistry, has, under the title " A Bunsen burner for 

 two cents," recently described a simple piece of appara- 



