The book of lantern ; being a practical guide to the working of the optical (1888)

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THE BOOK OF THE LANTERN. 99 briefly this. He works with a hard pencil on a piece of very finely-ground glass ; afterwards filling in the outlines thus made with water colours, and applying a coat of var- nish so as to give the necessary transparency to the picture. This method he brought before the Royal Microscopical Society, and the following extract from his paper describes the matter so clearly that all will be able to follow his directions:— " Most working microscopists have felt the necessity, in reading papers on their work, of accurate illustration. These enlarged drawings fail in matter of detail, unless extravagant labour is expended, and considerable skill employed. Even then the light of an ordinary lecture hall is not enough to enable the most distant of the audience to see them. It is only by means of the limelight and transparencies that really useful illustrations can be given. But here the difficulty is to prepare them accu- rately and inexpensively. Photography cannot be employed in all cases; and even where it can be, it involves more labour than most microscopists can afford. Drawing and painting on glass in the usual method is an art that it takes years to learn; and to employ one who has learned it to draw from nature a highly-magnified object, would be to introduce unnumbered errors of interpretation, unless our artist be a microscopist himself. " I obviate all these difficulties by the following method: On finely-ground glass, drawing with a black lead pencil is as easy as drawing on London board. I get four inch squares of glass to suit my lantern, carefully ground on one side like the focussing glass of a camera. Now with H2