1890.] MICROSCOPICAL JOUENAL. 215 



BOYS' DEPARTMENT. 



What Shall My Cabinet Be? 



By E. C. HOYT, 



MEDINA, OHIO. 



Cabinets are made in so many different forms that it is often quite a 

 puzzle to the young microscopist to decide which is the most desirable. 

 The writer, after ten years experience can, perhaps, be of some assist- 

 ance. 



There are many things to be considered in the selection of cabinets, 

 such as fire, moving, looks, convenience, safety of slides (either when 

 exhibiting objects to one's friends, or while lying in a cabinet year after 

 year), facilities for indexing, cataloguing, the exclusion of dust, etc. 



In referring to numbers I will use Mr. Woolman's catalogue, as it 

 happens to lie before me. Most other dealers furnish the same stvles 

 of cabinets, only varying as to catalogue numbers. 



Mr. M. S. Wiard has written a paper and illustrated a very fine 

 cabinet to hold 2,520 slides, made out of a spool-case, which has most 

 of the good features of No. 3S17, which only holds 1,000 objects and 

 costs $70.00. These cabinets are very nice where one is permanently 

 settled, but in case of a fire the result might be disastrous ; and if one 

 had to move, even no further than a few blocks in a city, there would 

 be great danger of loss, and to move any considerable distance, one 

 would have to purchase packing boxes and pack each slide carefully in 

 cotton. 



The Pillsbury cabinets show more desirable features than any others, 

 perhaps. They are practically dust-proof, the objects lie flat, they 

 may be packed as they are and moved thousands of miles, as my own 

 objects have been, thereby saving the trouble of rearranging with cata- 

 logue upon opening. They are very handy, occupy the least possible 

 space. Somehow I always have felt that a $5.00 or a $10.00 slide de- 

 served a better home than a 10-cent wooden box, and the labels on the 

 ends of the boxes are altogether too small for 25 names. This may be 

 remedied by a catalogue. In this way, by simply numbering the boxes, 

 any slide may be found in an instant. The whole label is about large 

 enough to show the number and the nature of the objects satisfactorily. 



No. 3809 with four doors, holding 200 objects, is a pretty cabinet, 

 but as the objects cannot lie flat, should be used with care. This is 

 also a difficult cabinet to catalogue. It might do for opaque objects so 

 far as the incline goes, but I consider no balsam mount safe in it for 

 any great length of time. It was Dr. Carpenter who said, " All ob- 

 jects should lie flat," and he is good authority. 



No. 3809^, holding 200 objects with deep cells, or 400 when slides 

 are placed back to back, is a very good cabinet for natural minerals 

 cemented on to slides, and I have moved mine full without a broken 

 slide, but it catches about all the dust which falls upon the top of the 

 cabinet, and would be very unsuitable for fine slides. Had this defect 

 been foreseen it might very easily have been avoided. 



No. 3808, holding 72 objects in t2 trays, is a good cabinet for slides 

 which look nice to the naked eye. They show to good advantage, and 



