ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 



923 



Ftg 17^ 



Brown's Slide-box. — Mr. E. Brown, jun., of Yale College Ob- 

 servatory, U.S.A., has devised a slide-box (fig. 173) to stand on end 

 like a book (and appropriately lettered on the back), the slides re- 

 maining horizontal, cover-glasses uppermost. It consists of an inner 

 box of pasteboard, covered with 

 bookbinder's cloth, 7 in. by 4 in. 

 by 1|- in,, with a rack on each 

 side 2-3rds in. deep. Both the 

 bottom of the box and the top of 

 one of the racks is numbered from 

 1 to 30, corresponding to the divi- 

 sions of the rack, and the loose cover 

 which fits on the inner box (not 

 shown in the fig.) has corresponding 

 numbers, against which the names 

 of the slides can be written. This 

 inner box slides in an outer case. 

 Mr. Brown writes of the box as 

 follows : — 



" So far as it is an improvement 

 upon the form employed by Prof. 



H. L. Smith, it is the joint work of Governor J. D. Cox, of Ohio, and 

 myself, and has been in use three years and more, and our satisfactory 

 experience with it seems to be confirmed by the increasing number of 

 inquiries I receive from microscopists to whose attention it has come, 

 without other notice than the exhibition of it before the Section of 

 Microscopy and Histology of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science at Cincinnati in 1881. 



While it seems to me that the box explains itself, I will say of 

 one or two points which might seem to be superfluous, that it was 

 the outcome of our experience with a very smoky and sooty atmo- 

 sphere, wherefore the cover to the inner box, which is also made to 

 do duty as a table of contents. This is unattached, because it was 

 thought to be in the way, if hinged, when the box or several of them 

 were in use ; as it is, it can lie in, on, or under the box or its cover, 

 without occupying any of the table room. At the corresponding 

 numbers on the index are written in pencil the names of contained 

 objects. The column of numbers in the bottom of the box was so 

 placed at first, but becomes superfluous when the numbers are placed 

 on the top edge of the rack, where a slight deviation from exact con- 

 formity with the slide's position is of less consequence. Many kinds 

 of paper were tried to find one which being correctly spaced in 

 printing would not stretch in the process of pasting in the box, and 

 the one which has been found to answer (' plate ' paper) when printed 

 in one direction, will stretch from l-8th to l-4th in. in the 7, if 

 printed in the rectangular direction, i. e. when wet with paste. 



Between the edges of the slides and the movable cover (and, if 

 found necessary, in the bottom of the box) may be put a piece of felt, 

 or cloth, or flannel, for the more effectual exclusion of dust or smoke, 

 and for the greater security of the slides if to be subjected to rough 



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