A small agate mortar is indispensable. It must be used for grinding substances softer than itself to a powder, but it will break if rapped sharply.
A small jeweler's hammer is used to flatten metallic globules upon any hard surface A regular blow-pipe outfit would include a small anvil for this purpose, but it is hardly necessary, as any iron or steel surface will do.
MAGNET. LENS. NEST OF TEST TUBES.
A magnet will detect the presence of any magnetic mineral, especially if it is reduced to powder and the test made under water.
Two small files, one three-cornered and the other rat-tailed, must be included in the list of requisites. By means of the former, glass tubing may be notched and pulled or pushed apart, and the latter is necessary in fitting glass tubing to the cork of wash-bottles and other apparatus.
A good lens is indispensable. That known as the Coddington is as good as any.
A dozen test tubes of hard glass, with stand, in small and medium sizes, should not be forgotten.
A glass funnel 2½ inches in diameter is requisite in filtering. The circular filter papers are folded in four and placed in the funnel, point down, three thicknesses of the paper being on one side of the funnel and one thickness on the other.
A wash-bottle is made from a flask into which a sound cork has been placed with holes in it for two pieces of glass tubing. The one serves as a mouth-piece into which the operator blows, while the other, reaching almost to the bottom of the bottle and ending in a spout outside the cork, permits a stream of water to be forced out of the bottle when it is blown into.