Andrea,
                we used to use a cotton ball moistened with dilute methylene
blue to wipe over the surface of the block. This gave us a good idea of the
tissue at that level and helped greatly in the orientation.
If you prefer  you can always place a cut section on a slide and add several
drops of dilute aqueous methylene blue (say 0.05-0.1%), this also works well.
No need to mount the section.
Barry

AndreaH@imclone.com wrote:

> This is probably a silly question but ... I was wondering is there any way
> to quickly stain paraffin sections so that I can evaluate whether or not I
> need to cut further into the block.  We are looking for something very
> specific and every section counts but to section the whole block would take
> hours of time not to mention many many expensive slides?  Can you quick
> stain sections without deparaffinizing?
>
> Andrea