EVENINGS 



AT THE MICROSCOPE. 



-»<>♦- 



CHAPTER I. 



IIAIIJS, FEATHERS, AND SCALES. 



Kot many years ago an eminent microscopist received a 

 communication inquiring whether, if a minute portion of 

 dried skin were submitted to him, he could determine it 

 to be human skin or not. He replied that he thought 

 he could. Accordingly a very minute fragment was 

 forwarded to him, somewhat resembling what might be 

 torn from the surface of an old trunk, with all the hair 

 rubbed off. 



The professor brought his microscope to bear upon it, 

 and presently found some fine hairs scattered over the 

 surface ; which, after carefully examining them, he 

 pronounced with confidence to be human hairs, and 

 such as grew on the naked parts of the body ; and 

 declared the person who had owned them to have been 

 of a fair complexion. 



This was a very interesting decision, because the frag- 

 ment of skin was taken from the door of an old church 

 in Yorkshire ;* in the vicinity of which a tradition is 



* I am writing from memory, having no means of referring- to the 

 original record, which will be found in the first (or second) volume of 

 the "Transactions of the Microscopical Society " of London. The 

 general facts, however, may be depended on. 



B 



