26 SOME HINTS ON THE PREPARATION AND 



III. 



IT is a matter of regret, I thintf, to those who have taken the 

 trouble to think at all about the matter, that in our microscopic 

 work, the efforts of almost all observers and workers are mainly de- 

 voted to such preparations as require, at least, moderately high pow- 

 ers and carefully arranged transmitted light for proper showing. 

 Doubtless this is the only method by which we can hope to obtain 

 any knowledge of the real structures of tissues, animal or vegetable, 

 or of inorganic substances, such as rocks; but there are thousands 

 of objects in the limitless realms of nature which will afford instruc- 

 tion and delight to the most indifferent of observers, who view merely 

 their exteriors with a low power. Many of those require neither 

 preparation or mounting, being too common or abundant to repay 

 the slightest labor bestowed upon them. Others, however and 

 their name is legion can and should be preserved in some permanent 

 manner, readily accessible, and easily arranged for examination. In 

 the vegetable kingdom we are presented with an endless and charm- 

 ing variety of beautiful forms in the seeds of even our commonest 

 flowers, or even weeds, whilst the feathers, scales and hairs of the 

 animal afford a never ending storehouse of treasures for the seeker 

 after the curious and beautiful. The pollen from the tiniest 

 flower, or the sands from the shores of the mighty ocean, alike pre- 

 sent us forms and colors of surpassing beauty; and the preservation 

 of these in a permanent form is at times most desirable. It shall 

 be the purport of the present paper to point out some plain methods 

 of doing so, which will produce good results if carefully followed. 



Let us term this method of mounting "The Dry Way," to distin- 

 guish it from those preparations made in aqueous or other fluids, and 

 proceed to make our mount in one of the several ways whereby it 

 may be done. The books have been filled with such for years, good, 

 bad, and indifferent. We have had full discussions of the merits 

 and demerits of cells, possible and impossible; some made of shel- 



