Microscopy at the American Exhibition. By R.H. Ward. 25 
pollen will give a valuable clue to a plant’s relationships, whilst at 
other times it will give no clue at all, or it points in various 
contrary directions. This is because plants have not descended 
one from another in a straight line, but possess complicated rela- 
tionships with plants belonging to several different natural orders. 
—The Gardeners’ Chronicle. 
IV.—Meroscopy at the American Exhibition. 
By R. H. Warp, M.D. 
In briefly reviewing the microscopes exhibited at the American 
Centennial Exhibition, just closing at Philadelphia, it will be con- 
venient to classify them in three more or less natural groups: the 
Continental, English, and American. All these classes are largely 
and characteristically represented by the most interesting and in 
many cases by the most distinguished examples of their kind, 
affording to microscopical students the best opportunity yet fur- 
nished in this country to study and compare the various types and 
qualities of tools available for their work. 
It will be expedient to mention first, however, a few isolated 
and unclassifiable exhibits which are still of sufficient interest to 
demand a passing notice, such as a very small upright educational 
microscope of no well-marked character, from Switzerland ; a small 
instrument from Tokio, Japan, which is evidently an early if not a 
first attempt, and a not unsuccessful one, though of unpretending 
form and crude workmanship, to imitate the instruments in vogue 
in this country a score of years ago; and a couple of large, clumsy 
instruments from Canada, one of them from Montreal and the 
other in the educational exhibit from Toronto, of which it can only 
be hoped that they do not fairly represent the science and art of 
our Canadian friends, since they are wholly devoid of any evidence 
of the spirit of that progress which has so fully and so fortunately 
changed the microscope from a piece of furniture to a tool for 
scientific work, and are in fact excellent illustrations of what a 
microscope ought not to be for educational purposes. 
The Continental microscopes are chiefly represented by the ex- 
hibit of Nachet, of Paris, whose compact, ingenious, elaborate, and 
thoroughly built instruments are present in large numbers and 
great variety, constituting, with one exception perhaps, the most 
exhaustive exhibit in our department. Besides the familiar Nachet 
stands, large and small, monocular and binocular, for one observer 
and for more than one, and of course the inverted microscope of 
Professor J. L. Smith, which the manufacturer never should have 
