Abstract
ONE of the great handicaps in making attractive to the ordinary museum visitor specimens of the smaller organisms has been the need for mounting such in formaldehyde, alcohol, or other fluid, which almost invariably bleaches colour and makes necessary awkward methods of attachment. To a considerable extent that difficulty has been overcome by the use of an acrylic resin, ‘Plexiglass’, the product of experiments conducted by Dr. Otto Rohm, of Philadelphia. Dr. Charles E. Sands, of the Bureau of Agricultural Chemistry and Engineering, has developed a method of embedding specimens in blocks of this material so that they resemble fossils preserved in amber, except that ‘Plexiglass’ is colourless and crystal-clear, clearer it is said than the finest glass, and will retain its transparency permanently. Specimens before embedding must be dehydrated in air or with alcohol or dioxan, and the setting is done in vacuum to prevent the inclusion of air-bubbles while the mountant is changing from semi-fluid to the solid state. A collection of miscellaneous specimens mounted in this way was on view at the New York World's Fair, and is permanently shown in the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.
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Mounting Museum Specimens in Plastic. Nature 147, 236 (1941). https://doi.org/10.1038/147236b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/147236b0