164 The Microscope. 



his hand, unscrew it. So he used a pair of heavy gas-fitter's 

 pliers, and succeedeed in pulling the tube of the fine adjust- 

 ment out of the body of the instrument. This rude handling 

 damaged the microscope to the amount of forty-five dollars. 



Quite recently the owner of an instrument which cost three 

 hundred and fifty dollars told me that he had a wonderfully 

 clever son. " Why," he exclaimed, "he has, with a screw-driver, 

 taken the microscope all apart ! He is unable, however, to put 

 it together again." This outrage illustrates the incapacity of 

 some people, old as well as young, to appreciate the products of 

 fine workmanship. 



I do not favor the nose-piece. If you must have one, choose 

 one that is of good design and thoroughly well made. Lenses, 

 especially those of high power, ought not to be tested with the 

 use of this accessory. 



A superior lens, worked by an illustrious microscopist, be- 

 comes its maker's best advertisement. But when it falls in- 

 to the hands of a careless or incompetent person, and is not care- 

 fully used or regularly and properly cleajied, to hold the maker 

 responsible for its consequent unsatisfactory performance is to 

 do him great wrong. — Journal N. Y. Mic. Society. 



AMERICAN vs. FOREIGN MICROSCOPES. 



Some time ago when the subject of American vs. Foreign 

 microscopes was being agitated in the microscopical and 

 scientific press of the country the National Druggist took the 

 ground that in everything pertaining to the " stand," con- 

 venience, beauty of design, accuracy, and fineness of finish, 

 and general superiority of workmanship, American microscopes 

 were away in advance of instruments of European make. The 

 idea was ridiculed by some of our eastern contemporaries, and 

 the Science Record went so far as to print a list of American 

 workers who preferred foreign instruments. The position taken 

 by the National Druggist has just been signally confirmed 

 from a very unexpected source, viz.: the Journal de Micro- 

 graphie, the leading microscopical monthly of France. The 

 editor, the well-known Dr. Pelletan, in introducing an article 

 on Bertrand's Mineralogical Microscope, says : " The readers of 



