240 Miscellaneous. 
The fossils should be thoroughly dried and cleaned from as much 
of the matrix as can be removed with safety; and, if it can be 
managed, warmed before being placed in the solution. When the 
glue is all dissolved, and the liquid nearly at boiling heat (ebullition 
should be avoided, if possible), it is ready for the immersion of the 
fossils, and they should remain in it as long as air-bubbles.rise to the 
surface; when these cease they will be sufficiently soaked. When 
taken out, they should not be drained, but laid in a position to retain 
as much as possible of the imbibed solution, until they are cold, 
when the glue will have set. Their position must then be shifted, 
to prevent their adhering to the board on which they may be laid. 
Any glue that may have drained from them may be then removed 
with a wet sponge. 
The vessels required are of the simplest kind. The common 
domestic utensils will answer for most purposes. ‘The ordinary 
house-copper, saucepan, or, better still, a large-sized fish-kettle with 
its strainer. But whatever the vessel used, a strainer of some kind, 
on which to place the bones for immersion and withdrawal, is indis- 
pensable; for the copper nothing is better than a wire-sieve. For 
bones too large for the vessel used, the treatment will have to be 
varied. For long limb-bones, strong enough to bear their own 
weight when saturated, it is only necessary to place one end in the 
vessel, and ladle the solution over the other end for a short time, and 
then reverse their position. But for bones which will not bear such 
treatment, the only plan is to securely fix them to a board, and place 
them in a slanting position in the solution, and well saturate them 
with it by ladling. For these, and for long portions of tusks of the 
Mammoth, and horn-cores of the large species of Bos, a special ves- 
sel, about three feet long, one foot wide at the top, nine or ten inches 
wide at the bottom, and nine inches deep, made of stout tin or gal- 
vanized iron, with a handle at each end, will be found most useful. 
Occasionally fossils are found which are either too large or too fri- 
able (as skulls and tusks from their natural construction frequently 
are) to be placed in the solution : for these a different method must be 
adopted to preserve them entire. Cover the fossil with thin paper, 
over which—on the sides and underneath if possible—put a coating 
of plaster of Paris, just thick and strong enough to keep together ; 
when firmly set, gently pour the solution boiling-hot over the fossil 
as long as it continues to absorb, to assist which it may be necessary 
to remove in a few places some of the surface-bone, which can be 
carefully replaced ; in two or three days the plaster may be partly 
removed by sawing and in small pieces, taking care not to injure the 
fo: sil by jarring it; the paper will prevent the plaster adhering to 
it. But this process is never so effective as submersion in the solu- 
tion, and may require to be repeated. Some bones are better for 
being dipped a second time, but not allowed to remain long enough 
in the solution to melt the glue they had previously imbibed. 
Delicate shells from the same kind of deposits may be treated, with 
care, in a similar manner with advantage. 
