OF THE FERNS AND FLOWERING PLANTS. 
171 
veniences and appliances brought to bear on them in the 
botanist’s own residence ; but, on the other hand, it must 
be remembered that they woidd suffer greatly, perhaps as 
much, from being transported for a week or ten days in a 
vasculum, before they were pressed. 
Two sets of frames with a proper supply of paper will be 
found sufficient; and, as soon as the plants are partially 
dried, which, with most of them, takes place within twenty- 
four hours, they may be transferred from the first to the 
second set. When the preparation is complete, they may 
be laid one upon the other for the convenience of carriage,, 
without fear of any permanent injury being done to them. 
To return to the more usual methods of preparation. 
Specimens collected on different occasions ought not, if 
possible, to be placed under pressure in the same pile; 
because the last and freshest are sure to impart some of their 
moisture to the others, which are already more or less dried, 
and are very likely to spoil them in consequence. If the 
piling them together is unavoidable, then they must be 
separated by thin boards, so as to prevent the damp from 
the plants more recently obtained being communicated to 
those which have already perhaps been shifted two or three 
times. For a like reason very succulent plants should not 
be put up with those of a less sappy nature ; besides, the 
former require to be more frequently shifted than their 
drier neighbours ; and to place them together would cause 
unnecessary disturbance to the latter. 
[Through the kindness of a friend, I have lately been 
made acquainted with a process of drying, which, if we may 
judge from the very beautiful results obtained, leaves no- 
thing to be desired. It consists in placing the specimen,, 
soon after it is gathered, in a tall narrow vessel, and then 
pouring over it very gently a sufficient quantity of clean 
dry sand, to cover it entirely. In this state it is left undis- 
turbed (unless, as sometimes happens, the drying material 
has to be renewed) until the moisture emanating from the 
