Distilled water, 1 part.
Although turpentine will not preserve reptiles or fishes, yet, struck with the perfect manner with which I was enabled to preserve soft-bodied beetles for nearly a year in benzol or benzoline, I lately tried if this cheap and colourless liquid would be of service for other subjects, with the result that I have now some frogs (six or seven) in a glass jar containing benzoline which have been immersed for over three months, and have apparently undergone less change than if in spirits for the same length of time. Whether they are likely to be permanently preserved by this method I cannot, of course, yet determine, but if so, it would be a great gain, owing to the brilliancy of the liquid, its cheapness, and its advantages over all alcoholic spirit in its less powerful action on the sealing wax or coating used over the corks or stoppers of the glass preparation jars.
There is no doubt that pure spirits of wine will preserve objects for a great length of time, but the cost is very serious to most persons, or even to institutions of less importance than the British Museum — added to which the strong spirit unquestionably shrivels and distorts such objects as fishes and reptiles, whilst, diluted to any appreciable extent, spirit will not preserve anything for any great period. To obviate these inconveniences chemists have invented more or less perfect preservative fluids, the oldest perhaps of which is
No. 24. — Goadby's Solution, No. 1.
Bay salt, 4 oz.
Corrosive sublimate, 4 grs.
Alum, 2 oz.
Boiling water, 2 quarts.
Keep in stoppered bottle labelled "Poison."
[Footnote: "Bay salt" is salt formed by evaporation of sea-water in shallow lagoons or "salt-pans" exposed to the rays of the sun.]