9 
private opinion sets in aa another direction. All I assert is, 
that the microscope has discovered these parasites, aud it remains 
or science to give the correct interpretation to their existence. 
To the medico-jurist the microscope has proved invaluable. 
‘Tt has brought the criminal to justice by identifying a few grains 
‘of sand upon his boots, and, with all honour let it be said, it has 
conclusively proved the innocence or guilt of the man accused of 
the crime of Cain. 
~The closest companion of the analyst is the microscope. By 
its aid he detects the smallest particle of adulteration in our food 
and in our drugs, and woe betide the grocer who endeavours to 
palm off the spurious, though clever, imitation of ‘ our finest 
Mocha coffee at 1s. 4d. per pound,” or who induces us_ to 
purchase the sloe-leaf as “ our full-flavoured congo, at 2s. 6d.” 
In our various dress materials and domestic fabrics the 
microscope enables us to detect the spurious from the real. We 
find without difficulty that our Lyons silk, a speciality at 3s. 7d. 
the yard, is composed of certain substances to which the silk- 
worm would claim no relationship ; and that the Angora, or even 
our common sheep, would turn up its nose at many tailors’ 
materials which are flaunted before our faces as “ all wool, 
13s. 6d. to measure.” 
‘Turning now to geology, we find in the microscope the 
touchstone to which all its theories may be brought, for geology 
up to a few short years ago was very purely of a theoretical 
character. But many of those theories are now, thanks to the 
microscope, proven and well-established facts. Who on picking 
up a piece of chalk on our downs would conclude that those 
breezy heights had in some remote generations been burrowed 
deep beneath the ocean ; that our great limestone formations are 
but the remains of animal life in long past ages; that our 
gigantic coal-fields, to which the wealth of our country is so 
largely due, were once on the surface of the earth examples of the 
most luxurious tropical vegetation ? We plunge our sounding 
ead far down to the ocean’s depths, and on its tallowed base 
bring to the surface a small particle of ooze, and the microscope 
sus at a glance that what is now taking place at enormous 
ustances beneath the sea is practically a continuation of the same 
zeological change which formed our chalk hills and gave 
xistence to our limestone ranges. In the infinitely minute 
Hatom, in the delicately-marked foraminifera, and the exquisite 
bolycystina we leave theories far behind and in their place have 
roofs as strong as those of holy writ. 
