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HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[May 1, 1867. 



only first-class microscopes I have yet seen in the 

 Exhibition. But more of this anon. Microscopy is 

 not one of the social institutions of Erance. 



As a naturalist I was disappointed, after hearing 

 the glowing descriptions at the " Silver Swan," 

 which is located not very far from the above-named 

 group. I was perhaps wrong in expecting too 

 much of nature from art. Back again to the Indian 

 Court I am accustomed to wend my way to take 

 another look at the stuffed fishes which Captain 

 Mitchell has sent for exhibition from the Madras 

 Museum. They are certainly the most praiseworthy 

 efforts at reproducing the natural appearance of 

 these most difficult objects in Natural History 

 which I remember to have seen, and are by no 

 means the satires upon fish-life which most of 

 the attempts at preserving fish, even in our best 

 museums, have hitherto been. There is, however, 

 one drawback, in that the glass eyes which have 

 been employed are very convex, instead of being 

 nearly plane. 



Several allusions have been made in these pages 

 to the gigantic extinct birds of New Zealand, and it 

 may be of interest to allude in passing to the re- 

 mains of one of these birds which Major Michael, of 

 Madras, will exhibit in the New Zealand Court, as 

 soon as that court is ready for their reception. They 

 are portions of a bird which must have attained a 

 height of not less than fourteen feet. 



No one who has seen and experienced the kind 

 of life in which the entire Parisian population in- 

 dulge, can be surprised that they do not pursue 

 more closely the study of minute life through the 

 medium of the microscope. The habit of dining in 

 the evening at the cafe or restaurant, and spending 

 the close of the day out of doors, — the absence of 

 anything approaching the domestic life of England 

 — solitude, retirement, study, or even intellectual 

 recreation, — whilst it surprises an Englishman, 

 forces on him the conviction that it is not here he 

 must look for improvements in that instrument 

 which, of all others, is becoming so widely the 

 source of amusement and instruction, and attaining 

 the position of a national institution in his own 

 country. 



After carefully searching through Class XII. in the 

 Exposition, I have found small microscopes ex- 

 hibited by E. Guudlach, of Berlin, in the Prussian 

 Department, and in the court devoted to mathe- 

 matical instruments on the Erench side are Nachet's, 

 Hartnach's, and Chevalier's small microscopes. The 

 best of any of these, as they stand in their show- 

 cases, only remind me of the instruments furnished 

 by good English makers at from five to ten guineas 

 each. What they may be in operation is still a 

 mystery, but the impression is anything but favour- 

 able. No one would suppose that the instruments 

 shown under the name of Nachet are those which 

 Erenclimen are in the habit of speaking of as the 



best and most expensive that are made in Paris. 

 The stands are low, and by no means elaborate in 

 construction ; the stage is devoid of any movement, 

 for it is observed that both French and Germans 

 prefer moving the slide containing the object with 

 their fingers, and at the same time declare that they 

 do so with greater precision than with any me- 

 chanical motion. The microscopes are all small, 

 say about nine or ten inches in the entire height, 

 when ready for work, and look as if they had been 

 constructed somewhere about twenty years ago. 

 Certainly there are two binoculars which from 

 peculiarity of construction have a most singular 

 appearance. Moreover, microscopes are exhibited 

 with two or three divergent tubes which all unite 

 at the lower end in a nozzle containing the object- 

 glass, and two or three observers are supposed 

 to be able to see the same object at the same 

 time, by looking down the respective tubes. 

 How much light can be thrown upon the object 

 under such circumstances never appears to have 

 entered into the consideration of the designer. 

 Under any circumstances they deserve a place 

 amongst the curiosities of microscopy. The Ger- 

 mans are said to prefer an instrument which is per- 

 manently erect, and the facility of inclining the body 

 at any angle is regarded as an innovation, and not as 

 an improvement. This reminds me that a friend 

 has informed me that an enterprising manufacturer 

 at Hamburg constructed a large instrument on the 

 English pattern two or three years ago, and has 

 never been able to dispose of it, so that it remains 

 in his window as a monument of disappointed hopes. 

 Surely the continental microscopists cannot be 

 addicted to bending their heads and stretching 

 their necks over a microscope hour after hour as 

 Englishmen sometimes do, or they never would be 

 so infatuated with their erect bodies. Every one 

 has his tastes, but mine does not include either 

 French or German microscopes, as far as I have 

 hitherto become acquainted with them. 



Another evidence of the want of universality in 

 microscopic pursuits on the Continent appears to be 

 the entire absence of all the little contrivances for 

 mounting and observation which are so common in 

 all the opticians' shops in London. One sees none 

 of the "knicknacks" which accompany the 

 microscope at home, and my own travelling micro- 

 scope is looked upon here, by all who have seen it, as 

 a kind of curiosity. Microscopical societies are 

 almost unknown. The Microscopical Society of 

 Paris is confined only to a few members, and is not 

 even known by name, save in a limited circle. 



In the Belgian Court a large series of photo- 

 micrographs are exhibited under the name of 

 A. L. Neyt, of Gaud ; they are of a large size, but 

 deficient in clearness, and are by no means equal to 

 those which we are accustomed to see. The same 

 photographs are exhibited also by agents in other 



