ARTIFICIAL AIDS TO COMB-BUILDING. 
213 
these sheets pared down to the wondrous thinness of 
natural comb (Vol. I., page 172), they would furnish a 
sufficient amount of wax to complete the structure, which 
contains no less than eleven times its own area of 
tracery (exclusive of the capping). It is interesting 
to note how this immense amount of surface as cell 
walls and midrib is arranged. A, Fig. 62, represents, 
twice natural size, the edges of the former, which 
are supposed to be divided from each other as indi- 
cated. If we turn the separated sides a, a to the 
centre of the cell a\ they will there exactly meet. 
B 
Fig. 62.— Details of Cell Walls (Twice Natural Size). 
A, End View of Cell Walls. B, Side View of ditto—/, Face of Comb ; m, Middle 
Plane of Midrib ; s, s, s, Spaces Closed by Midrib. 
covering the dotted line; and if this process be 
repeated with each cell, as suggested by the lettering 
of the illustration, we shall convert the hexagons into 
a series of perpendiculars, placed at half the cell- 
diameter from each other. (If there be any difficulty 
in following the Figure, a few hexagons, built up 
i on a table with lucifers, may be transformed into 
perpendiculars at once.) Having this method of 
^ converting the polygons into an equivalent of such 
, simplicity, the length of line of which is immediately 
