198 MEMORANDA. 



Amongst English exhibitors we observe scarcely any new 

 names; but in addition to the four or five well-known and 

 world-famous London makers, we are glad to perceive those 

 of several others who, though not unknown even then, have, 

 since 1851, deservedly acquired a distinguished provincial 

 reputation. 



In the following hasty remarks upon what we have noticed 

 in the Exhibition, we beg merely to be understood as ex- 

 pressing our first impressions, and by no means as passing 

 judgment upon all that is exhibited. j\Iany excellent things, 

 and several worthy names have been passed over, without 

 doubt; not because what they exhibit is not deserving of all 

 praise, but because our space will only allow of our noticing 

 a few of those things which strike us as showing more pro- 

 minently the directions in which advance in the making of 

 microscopes has proceeded of late years. 



In the case of Mr. Ross, we notice as particularly worthy of 

 remark a new form of stand, in which the stage arrange- 

 ments appear, so far as we can judge, without actual expe- 

 rience, extremely admirable, from the great facility they 

 afford for the employment of oblique light in any direction 

 at once from the mirror, combined with the readiest move- 

 ment of the object in all directions. In other respects, also, 

 this stand seems to us to be the most complete and perfect 

 perhaps of any in the whole Exhibition. Messrs. Powell 

 and Lealand^s stand, it is needless to observe, with respect to 

 what is well known and so highly appreciated, is also one 

 of great excellence, and it has the merit, amongst others, of 

 being as light as is compatible with due stability. But the 

 most striking object exhibited by them is an object-glass 

 of Vt^I^ inch, certainly, so far as we are able to judge, the 

 most marvellous production in its way we have ever met 

 with. In clearness of definition and penetrating power it 

 is admirable ; and it has, farther, the remarkable advantage 

 in a lens of such short focal distance, of allowing sufficient 

 space between it and the covering glass. So far as object- 

 glasses are concerned, this may not improperly, perhaps, he 

 regarded as showing the greatest advance in the construction 

 of very high powers, great as that advance generally has 

 been, since the Exhibition of 1851. 



Messrs. Smith and Beck exhibit a magnificent display 

 of microscopes, all useful, and many of them admirable 

 forms of instruments ; but these have already been de- 

 scribed, and are, moreover, too well known to demand 

 special notice. They exhibit, it may Iniefly be said, three 

 distinct classes of microscopes, comprising seven different 



