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The material having been properly hardened in Flemming’s 
solution, and then in the graduated alcohols, is placed in absolute 
alcohol for 24 hours, then in a mixture of absolute alcohol and 
chloroform until it sinks, and from this is transferred successively 
to pure chloroform, to a mixture of chloroform and paraffin kept 
at a uniform temperature of about 58° C. and finally to pure 
paraffin wax with a melting point of 58°. Here it remains until 
the melted paraffin has penetrated every part of the hardened 
mass, which may take several days. 
The melted matrix with its embedded piece of material is 
now poured into a small cuboidal mould, and allowed to set, care 
being taken to orientate the fungus so that we know the direction 
of its various axes, and with certain precautions the whole is 
cooled in water, and turned out of the mould as a solid block, 
hard enough to hold the material fixed, but sufficiently soft to 
allow a sharp razor to pass bodily through fungus and wax 
together. 
This block, again properly orientated, is now affixed to a 
holder so arranged that the razor shaves off slice after slice, and 
the thin sections are secured as they come off and arranged for 
mounting. 
I am not here concerned with mechanical details devised to 
ensure definite thickness of sections, their sequence, in ribbons or 
otherwise, &c., and pass on to consider the further fate of the 
sections themselves. 
Each section is a clean cut slice of wax, firm enough to hold 
the embedded finely cut fungus in place, and if we lay the whole 
in some reagent which dissolves the wax, we have only the finely 
cut piece of fungus left, which will probably tumble to pieces or 
crumple up owing to the loss of its supporting wax matrix. 
To avoid this the sections are arranged on a glass slide on a 
thin film of white of egg, and allowed to remain there till the 
latter dries and glues them in place by means of its adherence to 
the clean cut walls. 
Now we can dissolve out the paraffin wax and have our fungus 
sections fixed zz sztw for further examination. 
Following the procedure of the method here chosen, this is 
done as follows :—The slide with its adherent sections is placed 
in xylol, which rapidly dissolves the parafiin wax, but has no 
solvent action on the transparent film of egg-white cementing the 
sections to the glass. From the xylol the slides are transferred 
to absolute alcohol, and after this has replaced the last trace of 
xylol the sections are ready for staining. 
The staining may be done as before, by first soaking the 
sections in iron-alum, and then, after washing in water, trans- 
ferring them to dilute Haematoxylin, passing through the 
