58 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
decaying race. Microscopic study is one of the youngest branches 
of the great tree of science. It is only within ten or fifteen 
years that microscopes have been brought to high perfection. 
Men of science, versed deeply and accurately in the laws of light, 
working together with those of consummate mechanical know- 
ledge and skill, have constructed microscopes combining the two 
chief requisites (high magnifying power with great clearness), and 
the large sale of these instruments is the best proof of the in- 
creasing interest taken in these pursuits. Three of the principal 
makers of microscopes in London sold last year 600 microscopes, 
and 100 of these were of the highest class of instruments. One 
of these houses alone sold 860 object-glasses (these are the mag- 
nifying glasses only) of high powers. The demand, too, for 
mounted objects is proportionate to the demand for instruments 
—so great is it that it is with difficulty kept up with. And this 
increase is in spite of the entire stoppage of any supply to 
America, owing to her civil war. A large number of these micro- 
scopes are supplied to the medical profession, for to us it has 
become indispensable in distinguishing with greater accuracy and 
certainty many diseases ; but its increased use amongst naturalists 
is seen by their publications. A. ‘Microscopical Quarterly 
Journal,’ numerous original papers in the transactions of all our 
great scientific societies—for there is no branch of natural, and 
few of physical, science which does not need and employ this 
instrument—the microscopical societies in the great towns, and 
the many manuals containing condensed accounts systematicall 
arranged of all recent discoveries, as well as older facts, testify 
to the great and increasing interest in this science. We have 
said there is no branch of natural science, and few of physical, 
which does not need and employ the microscope, and the objects 
you will see this evening, and which are a few only out of the 
vast supply, will give some idea of the extent of its field of re- 
search. The vegetable kingdom is illustrated from the simplest 
structures up to the most complex; from cells up to fiowers, 
leaves, pollen, and wood. The animal kingdom is represented by 
specimens of bone, horn, hair, muscles, ligament, lungs, brain, 
which form the various organs of man and the higher animals, 
and which show the form of the materials of which their bodies 
are composed ; whilst the insect tribes, which, from the complexity 
and delicacy of their structure, and their smallness of size, make 
some of the best microscopic objects, are shown either as whole 
insects or as parts. The eyes, the claws, the wings, the proboscis, 
the tongue, the breathing apparatus, of numerous species—many 
of the small and complete insects, and parasites living and dying 
on other insects and animals—supply objects of high interest. 
Lower in the animal scale, and at that point where animal meets 
vegetable life, so that it is difficult to decide which is animal and 
which is vegetable, are the various specimens of the tribes of the 
Diatomacee, Foraminifere, and Polycistine, whose finely marked 
shells of flint are objects delicate and very elegant. The geologist 
io Coa, 
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