THE AMATEUR MICROSCOPIST DURING WARTIME. 67 



by great good fortune, there arrived from my old company as 

 pioneer a man wlio was an excellent amateur mechanic. He 

 was quite accustomed to the use of the microscope, and on 

 seeing my efforts up to date he proposed to have some of his 

 tools sent out from home. These arrived later, and comprised 

 a good bench vice, taps and dies up to l/4th in., hack-saw, files, 

 brace and bits and soldering outfit. As model No. 2 was so 

 unsatisfactory, the substage problem was deferred until a solu- 

 tion of the adjustment problem above the stage was reached. 



I began to look out for a sliding fitting with less play in move- 

 ment. In this wearisome quest for something suitable, I made 

 friends with a kindly old man in a shop near the South Gate, who 

 allowed me to search drawer after drawer in his shop until at 

 last in a guide for a sliding plate-glass show-case front I found 

 what I wanted, a substantial brass block with a steel strip dove- 

 tailed into it. It took the leisure of three days to get the working 

 of the dovetail sweet and without shake, working at it with 

 razor paste. I spent weeks trying to find a piece of rack and 

 pinion in vain, and finally recollected the motion of the " Argus " 

 stand. Getting a number of little grooved brass rollers from 

 window blind fittings, I cut them two at a time into worm wheels 

 with a tap, and made a dozen before I could get two to work 

 smoothly enough on the best screwed bar I could produce. The 

 screwed bar is an ordinary six-inch nail. The attachment of 

 this rod to the slide was no small difficulty. To recall the items 

 of construction, and their innumerable variations in the progress 

 to a final efficiency, would be too tedious ; but in the figures it will 

 not be difficult to recognise the large and small castor jaws 

 forming the knuckle joint, the large castor wheel cut in two to 

 make coarse adjustment heads, the small wheel, the fine-adjust- 

 ment head ; the heavy scutcheon of a keyhole forms the stage, 

 the little dovetail attachment underneath it carrying a substage 

 bracket, made from window-blind fittings, a substage ring cut 

 from a shaving-soap box, tailpiece of fishing-rod joint, and 

 gimbal (very effective, after hours of work and making and re- 

 making) holding a mirror made from a shaving-soap box lid and 

 a penny shaving-glass cut down. The feet are detachable, and 

 comprise a blacksmith's dividers held by a dummy cartridge 

 screwed on to the pin of the small castor. To get the original 

 rivet out of the blacksmith's dividers was no small job, effected at 



