l888.] NEW-YORK MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. Ill 



eries ; that may be necessary as a first Step to this, but 'tis the 

 single Glass of the first Power that is to determine all." With a 

 little change, — so as to make it apply to the simple, rigid Euro- 

 pean stand as against the ample, adjustable English and Ameri- 

 can model, — the foregoing paragraph would appear quite 

 modern. 



And yet, while we must deprecate the practice of belittling 

 and berating every new instrumental aid placed at our disposal, 

 we must admit that there is another extreme to which enthusi- 

 asts or charlatans occasionally go and which also is deserving 

 of unsparing condemnation. I refer to the making of extrava- 

 gant and unwarranted statements as to the capabilities of the 

 microscope or of efforts to excite undue wonder at the results 

 of its use. This is not a fault common to the class of micro- 

 scopists, and is not exactly the sin charged upon us by our 

 would-be excommunicators. This is merely the showman's trick 

 of picturing his prodigies just a little more prodigious than the 

 living realities. It is the subterfuge of the quack, an artifice of 

 the cheap lecturer. Even when it is resorted to in sober earn- 

 est it has its droll and entertaining aspect, as well as its serious 

 and instructive side. 



Thus, not unlike Sam Weller's " patent double million magni- 

 fyin' gas microscope of hextra power," with which one might 

 "see through a flight o'stairs and a deal door," must have been 

 that astonishing instrument with which Dr. Highmore claimed 

 that it was possible to see the magnetic emanation of the load- 

 stone. And a still more amusing case of circumstantial men- 

 dacity or of clever fiction is that quoted from Father Noel 

 D'Argonne,' in that curious work, attributed to Dr. John Camp- 

 bell, entitled " Hermippiis Redivivus, or the Sage's Triumph over 

 Old Age and the Grave.'' According to this extraordinary 

 relation, the author, while on a visit to London, made the aq- 

 quaintance of a tradesman who, in return for a slight courtesy, 

 with some show of mystery, presented to the Frenchman " an 

 instrument in a tortoishell case, which proved to be a most ex- 

 cellent microscope." Our author goes on to say : " I may well 

 bestow this epithet upon it, since it was so excellent as not 

 only to discover an infinity of bodies imperceptible to the naked 



1. Melange d'histoire et de literature, par M. De Vigneul— Marville, Paris, 1700. 



