Oct., ] 890. 
PAINTING SLIDES FOR THE MICROSCOPE. 
225 
The second thing is the tools to use. For pencils you 
must have the hardest possible best drawing pencil. I 
use two sorts, 4H and 6H. For brushes I use quite small 
yellow sable water colour brushes, taking care that they 
come to a very fine point. Common brushes are of no use 
whatever. The paints are ordinary moist water colours, 
but only the transparent kinds, a list of which, with notes, 
I give below. 
My method of procedure is as follows :—I have a small 
piece of glass ruled in fine squares, which slips into the eye¬ 
piece of the microscope. There are sixteen squares across 
the field of view. Any optician will make this for 8s. 
or 4s. Consequently I see the field of view divided into 
squares. I then rule a piece of card with a space inch 
square with small squares T 3 g inch across. This also has 
sixteen squares across it. If I lay a piece of ground glass 
on this, a little frame being fixed to the card to keep 
the glass in place, I can see the squares through it, and 
can copy from my microscope with the greatest facility, 
even with high powers, and with complete accuracy. This 
“ drawing instrument” is far superior to any on the camera 
lucida plan. I have tried three or four—Nachet’s, Zeiss’s, 
and others, and I detest them all: they are clumsy, expensive, 
and inefficient. 
With my 4H pencil I make a very light outline. This 
is very important, as a good outline always is in painting. 
Here Dr. Dallinger recommends you to “shade” your 
drawing with a pencil, and, if you like, cover it with washes 
of colour. No one can invent a good thing all at once, and 
this is a good beginning, but the result is much inferior to a 
properly painted slide. No! Paint up your slide as if it 
were a picture on paper, and you will be very pleased to find 
how pleasantly your paints work on the ground glass. 
After the 4H pencil, I go over the outline with the 6H, and 
make it clear and firm. Before touching the slide with 
colour pour a little benzine over it, and rub it with the 
finger. This lightens the pencil marks without rubbing 
them quite out, and removes all traces of grease from finger 
marks. If it be not used the outlines will show on the 
finished slide, and make it look dirty. Buskin’s direc¬ 
tion for painting in water colours is to finish as you go 
on ; never go over and over your picture as unskilled people 
do. You cannot lay one wash over another in painting on 
glass, for a second wash disturbs the first. I generally settle 
on what I consider to be the medium tint or tints, I wash the 
picture over with these, and then paint on the details after- 
