Microscopical Society of Victoria. 55 
little you will have a tolerably smooth ancl level cake of wax on 
the slide the thickness of the gauge. 
When cool, place the slip on a turn-table, and with a pen-knife 
or other convenient tool, turn out the centre to any size required, 
thus a cell is formed, which it is necessary to clean, as the marks 
of the knife will remain on the bottom. This is easily done with 
a small piece of rag moistened with benzine. For opaque objects 
this can be dispensed with by placing a piece of black paper at the 
bottom of the cell and mounting your object upon it. I prefer 
mounting the specimen on the glass after cleaning it. 
Having placed the specimen in position, proceed to cover it. 
The cover — whether round or square matters not — has to be 
warmed over a spirit lamp, and while warm to be dropped into its 
place, being very careful as to its position, because you cannot remove 
it when once placed warm on the slide without spoiling the coll. 
I would caution you also against heating the cover glass too much, 
as your wax will then riui, and you will perhaps have a shapeless 
cell instead of a neat round one. 
When cold, cut away with a warm knife the superfluous wax, 
and clean off with benzine. If you have not placed the black 
paper in the cell, paste it on the under-side of the slip, or paint 
with some black varnish to form a back ground. 
Before using the wax material, you can, if you please, colour it 
and make a great variation in the external appearance of your 
slides, without in any degree affecting the efficiency of the cell. 
Thus : — Melt the wax in a small cup, and mix thoroughly with 
lamp or ivory black, yellow chromes, white oxide of zinc, red 
vermillion, or brown carbonate of iron. In fact, any colour you 
please can be made by having recourse to painters’ dry colours, and 
with advantage also, as the colours will tend to harden and give 
more solidity to the wax. 
Having thus spoken of wax cells for mounting opaque objects, 
to which I have more particularly applied them, I may add, for 
balsam, glycerine, jelly, and Far rant’s medium there can bo no 
objection, as those materials will fasten the covers down of them¬ 
selves, and will require less trouble than the cells in ordinary use. 
As to fluids, I have sealed up glycerine, glycerine and water, 
spirits and water, and water, but perhaps I ought not to say much 
