WITH THE MICROSCOPE. 33 



illustrations in my works could not have been published. Remem- 

 bering how much I needed at one time the little information given 

 here I gladly communicate it, imperfect as it is, in case there may 

 be others in the same situation as I was. 



The student must not, however, suppose that the task is an easy 

 one. It is quite as impossible to obtain a good representation of 

 any microscopic object without long and careful study, as it is to 

 produce a copy of any other object in nature ; and surely it is hard 

 to expect a draughtsman, who is engaged in copying various subjects 

 to spend hours in looking at specimens in a microscope, observing 

 things which he neither knows nor perhaps desires to know anything 

 about. Neither is it possible that any one man can make himself fully 

 conversant with all the beautiful minutiae in every branch of microscopic 

 enquiry. It is true that Mr. Tuffen West, and one or two other gen- 

 tlemen, have taken up this kind of drawing and engraving, and have 

 produced most beautiful results. I believe Mr. West's success as an 

 engraver of microscopic objects to be due to the interest he- takes 

 in the subject, and to his being himself a practical microscopical 

 observer. There are many drawings of microscopic objects which 

 ought to be published, and although these may be of little interest to 

 persons generally, are absolutely required by those who are working 

 at special subjects. However rich a man may be, it is doubtful if a 

 large sum of money should be spent in employing artists to do work 

 which, however well skilled they may be, they cannot do so truthfully 

 as the observer himself, unless they have devoted the same attention 

 to the subject. Few artists have time or inclination for this. There 

 is not, however, the same difficulty as regards our own time. That 

 which is worth recording is worth an expenditure of time, is worth 

 doing well. Whatever is observed is worth copying, if it has not been 

 correctly copied before. 



Very much yet remains to be done in representing microscopic 

 texture faithfully. Photography has advanced wonderfully, and will 

 doubtless, assist us more, but there are many structures the colour 

 of which alone renders it quite impossible to obtain photographs of 

 them, and there must always be many appearances which can only 

 be rendered by accurately copying them by hand. I cannot, 

 therefore, too strongly urge on all those who wish to work at the 

 microscope, to practise drawing as much as possible ; and from the 

 first. All advance in our knowledge of structure, as well as of the 

 minute changes incessantly going on in living organisms, depends 

 I think, in great measure, upon accurate copies of the objects 

 being made, and in this way only is it likely that the work of the 

 present generation will be useful to that which succeeds it. 



D 



