232 Answers to Quertes. 
414.—Forming Cells.—I have been waiting with great interest 
to see whether anyone would answer Z. S.’s question about making 
holes in glass for the purpose of forming cells, as I believe that 
cells thus formed are far and away the best that can be had at a 
cheap rate, especially for sending by post. It stands to reason that 
a square inch (or more) of glass can be cemented to a slide far 
more firmly than any mere ring. I have not had much expe- 
rience, but I believe Z. S. will find the following plan answer until 
he can learn a better:—(1) Get the blacksmith to make you an 
iron plate, sufficiently thick to be perfectly rigid (something less 
than 4 inch will do), and to drill a dozen or twenty holes in it (it 
is a great saving of time to be able to make a good many cells at 
once) of the size and shape you want your cells to be. (2) Take 
scratched, clouded, or rubbed slides, useless for any other purpose, 
and cut them into pieces an inch square, or, if you want long 
oblong cells, 14 by 1 inch. (3) Then heat your glue-pot. 
Common glue does very well, but I use best glue with a little 
sugar in it, and glue your pieces of glass over the holes, taking 
care to leave the opposite margins equal. Use the glue thin and 
hot, and warm, but do not feaz, the iron plate before you affix the 
pieces of glass. (4) Leave the plate for a couple of days, so that 
the glue may get perfectly hard and dry. (5) Then, placing your 
iron plate with the glass pieces uppermost on a folded newspaper, 
take a stout file out of its handle ; see that the point that has been 
in the handle is sharp. Place the point on the centre of the cell 
to be formed, hold it perpendicularly, and strike the other end of 
the file a sharp tap with a mallet. The glass will splinter as far as 
the margin of the hole in the iron, and, if you are lucky, no 
farther. A few more light taps on the splintered glass will enable 
you to introduce a circular or semi-circular file, with which you 
can file away the glass that remains, till it is flush with the sides of 
the hole in the iron plate. (6) Put your plate into a basin and 
pour boiling water on it. In a minute or two you can push off the 
cells that you have made. I fasten them on to slides with marine 
glue, but I fancy common glue would do just as well. 
It must be allowed that the edges of the cells are not very 
smooth—at least, I have not succeeded in making them so; but a 
black band of asphalt, when you have mounted your object, will 
conceal this, and give them a very neat appearance. When the 
glue has once set, they can be made very quickly. I have made 
sixteen (and marred two) in about half-an-hour. If anyone can 
suggest improvements on this plan, I should be very glad to know 
them, for (as I said) I have only tried to make them quite recently. 
“Si quid novisti rectius istis, 
Candidus imperti ; si non, his utere mecum.” 
OREB. 
