696 ‘MICROSCOPY. 
After the body of the kettle had been brought into its true 
shape, the first step towards improvement was to make a not very 
thick solution of glue in water, and lay it with a small brush, into 
all the joints; avoiding spreading the glue beyond the joints as 
much as possible. This, on drying, set all the fragments in place 
quite firmly. The upper pieces around the hole, however, were 
not glued, but left supported by the gummed slips only for con- 
venient insertion of the last pieces. Slips were next gummed on 
the inside across all gaps left by missing fragments. I then made 
a kind of cement, or mortar from pieces of very soft burned brick, 
pounded to dust, sifted, shaded to the color of the kettle with 
lamp-black, and moistened to a plastic state with not very thick . 
glue water. With this mortar all the joints and gaps were filled 
on the outside. But the gaps were designedly not filled quite to 
the required thickness with one coat, as the mortar would shrink 
and crack somewhat in drying. Wherever these cracks appeared, 
glue was rubbed into them with the brush before laying on the 
final coat of cement. When this coat was dry it was smoothed 
with old files and sand paper and groove-marked in imitation of 
the unbroken surface. Protuberances inthe cement too large to 
be readily filed down in a dry state, were first surface-softened bcd 
slight damping. The hole at the top was next underlaid with 
slips, and filled. Finally the slips were all removed from the M- 
terior by damping with a moist cloth, and any crevices that ap- 
peared were filled with cement. 
From a basket full of nearly worthless shards was thus recon- 
structed a single relic, very rare (at least in Connecticut) whole 
and strong, showing no obvious breakage, as good as new for e 
nological use, and as indestructible if not soaked with water, 83 
any specimen of ceramic art.—E. W. Exuswortu, East Windsor 
Hill, Ct. 
MICROSCOPY. 
Beapep Smica Fitms.—Mr. Henry J. Slack has produced 
delicate films of silica, by mixing powdered glass, powdered fore 
spar and sulphuric acid in a flask and conducting through a 8149 
pipe the gas which escapes from the heated mixture into %7 
containing glycerine and water. By contact with pure water the 
gaseous silica is deposited so suddenly and violently as to PPO 
duce only amorphous particles, and a similar result is obt@® 
spi i 
Bey oe =e É A Y 
Ste ae Hae ee ea s rae 
ta Sameer Soh oe the ee ae a ne erie oe area oi, Sigg ae ei il ec 
