ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 
259 
absolutely no camera in the market to meet his requirements, he pro- 
ceeded to construct one. Procuring a plate-holder of the proper size, he 
built the camera to suit it after the plan of the man who carried the 
bung-hole to a cooper shop to have a barrel made for it. His material 
was some heavy blackened cardboard, and an old piece of a steam-fitting 
some 4 in. long ; his tools, a pocket-knife and a glue-pot, with the brains 
to use them. With these crude appliances he produced a camera, adapted 
to his Microscope, and capable of doing the highest class of work. He 
uses a Zeiss’s 1/18 homogeneous lens constantly; and frequently makes 
a dozen or more negatives of an evening therewith. 
Upon seeing this little affair, I was at once struck with the conviction 
that if it could be produced in a form adaptable to any Microscope, it 
would fully meet the long-felt want of just such an instrument. The 
result was the construction of the “ Handy ” camera, which has already 
been supplied to many institutions of learning and to private workers. 
The camera consists of a mahogany box about 2f in. square, cor- 
rugated and blackened on the inside to prevent any reflections of light. 
A solid cone of some 4 in. in length, tapering to receive the tube of the 
Microscope, is attached to the front of the box. Preferably, this cone front 
should be in a bellows form, as in the sample sent, but this being rather 
more costly than the solid cone, many will be satisfied with the latter. 
In one case the bellows responds readily to the movements of the Micro- 
scope tube in focusing ; in the other the tube must slide readily into and 
out of the solid cone. At the opposite end of the box is a groove, in 
which the plate-holder and frame containing the focusing screen slide. 
The former carries two plates 2J in. square, amply large for all ordinary 
illustrations. Should larger sized pictures be required they can be made 
by enlarging upon bromide paper. 
The focusing screen is made of very thin crystal glass, most care- 
fully ground by hand, presenting the smoothest surface obtainable by 
this means, but still quite too coarse for the exact focusing of delicately 
marked objects. In fact the focusing screen is mainly useful in pro- 
curing even and full illumination of the field, and in properly centering 
the object. The final fixing of the exact focus is done by means of a 
focusing glass used in conjunction with a disc of thin cover-glass 
attached to the ground surface of the screen by means of Canada 
balsam. 
The camera is mounted upon a stout metal rod, which slides into the 
upright shaft of a very heavy japanned base, and can be secured at any 
height to suit that of the Microscope (when the latter is placed in a 
horizontal position) by means of a milled head. The base is slnd with 
thick felt cloth, so that it may be placed upon any polished table-top 
without scratching the latter, and at the same time remain firmly fixed 
in the position it may be placed in. 
And this is all there is of it : simple, compact, always ready for 
immediate service, and occupying no appreciable space upon the work- 
table. Although primarily intended for use with the Microscope-body 
inclined in a horizontal position, it may be as readily adapted to the 
latter in a vertical one, when the character of the objects (as those 
mounted in fluids) may require. My own method has been to remove 
the camera from its base and mount it upon the top of an open box con- 
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