(1444) 
NEW BOOKS, WITH SHORT NOTICES. 
The Microscope and its Application.*—The appearance of a second 
edition of Professors Nigeli and Schwendener’s Handbook of the 
Microscope (on the merits of which there is but one opinion abroad) 
will be hailed with interest by many in thi& country. Nor will this 
interest be diminished by the circumstance that the text-books 
which respectively represent foreign and English micrography differ 
so widely in subject, plan, and treatment. Our English manuals 
scarcely enter. upon that optical ground which is supposed to be 
specially reserved for the practical optician, whose authority as the 
designer and constructor of microscope combinations is accepted 
without question. On the other hand, they give full play to the 
fancy which dictates preferences for variety in size, shape, and 
mechanical arrangement of the instrument; in which respects the 
only gujding principle of any value—namely, that the instrument 
should be as little as possible encumbered with mechanical appliances, 
and that as much as possible should be left to the skilled manipu- 
lation of the observer—is too often neglected. But the English 
manual is chiefly distinguished by its fullness of detailed directions 
“how to work with the microscope,” and naturally blends with these 
directions a great amount of information regarding the various sub- 
jects of microscopic research as well as their technical manipulation. 
And thus it happens that the most important chapters of the English 
treatise are not those in which the optical construction of the micro- 
scope is explained, but rather such as treat of “its revelations.” 
But in the foreign handbooks, treating professedly of the theory 
and construction of the microscope, no place is made for disquisitions 
upon subjects of natural history, histology, or the special sciences of 
anatomy, pathology, &e. Firstly, because the theory of the micro- 
scope is treated in Germany as a physico-mathematical problem, in 
the demonstration of which the physicist and mathematician have 
equal if not superior rank with the mechanical constructor. And 
secondly, because the establishment of various schools of microscopy 
in the several university towns, and the issue of various scientific 
journals by professors connected therewith, as well as the frequent 
publication of special monographs, render every facility for micro- 
graphic literature, without trenching upon the volume specially 
devoted to the theory of the microscope and its manipulation. 
In the present phase of microscopic science another motive to 
study of the optical conditions under which appearances seen through 
the microscope must be interpreted, comes strongly into play: a 
motive which ought to be felt equally by all who profess to look 
a step or two beyond the mere amusement found in observing toy 
* ‘Tas Mikroscop: Theorie und:Anwendung desselben,’ von Carl Nageli, Pro- 
fessor in Miinchen, und 8S. Schwendener, Professor in Basel. Zweite verbesserte 
Auflage, mit 302 Holzschnitten, Leipzig: Verlag von Wilhelm Engelmann. 
1877. 
