SCIENTIFIC DRAWING AND DESCRIPTION 6? 



model of concise and accurate conveyance of his 

 ideas to another. In this he is to follow the exam- 

 ple of the best scientific monographs. For this pur- 

 pose both drawings and descriptions in words are 

 needed, each expressing something the other cannot 

 bring out so clearly, the two supplementing and not 

 duplicating one another. From the teacher's point 

 of view, however, the drawings are much the more 

 important, since from them he can most readily un- 

 derstand the student's progress. Ability to draw, 

 therefore, is an important element in a student's 

 scientific education. To realize, however, the full 

 value of drawing, it is necessary that this shall con- 

 sist not in the making of pictures correct in perspec- 

 tive and fine in finish, but in diagrammatic drawings 

 that convey to the mind of the beholder accurate con- 

 ceptions of the real construction of the object rep- 

 resented. A diagram, even if utterly unrecognizable 

 as a picture of its object, if it correctly represents its 

 structure with the aid of some words of explanation, 

 is a far better scientific drawing than one which 

 arouses admiration by its fidelity to nature as a picture, 

 but fails to express actual structure. If a drawing 

 can be at one and the same time an accurate diagram 

 of the structure of an object, and a picture giving a 

 true impression of its appearance, so much the bet- 

 ter ; and indeed this is the ideal in scientific drawing. 

 But diagrammatic accuracy is its first quality. 



