WESTERN MICROSCOPICAL CLUB. 149 
Turning to the binocular instruments, there were to be seen 
some in which not only the tube was as it were halved to form two, 
but the object-lens itself was actually cut in half. One was so 
arranged that the two half-tubes and half-lenses would fold together 
and form a monocular. Here were also the old specimens with 
parallel tubes, and the modern instruments with their converging 
tubes. Devices for exhibiting a series of objects arranged on a 
rotating plate or on a sort of water-wheel had numerous representa- 
tives. A gigantic species of brass barrel-organ, that once figured 
at one of the International Exhibitions at the modest price of three 
hundred pounds, has found a resting-place in Mr. Crisp’s collection. 
This monster shows some five hundred objects, bringing each in 
turn before the gazer with its name appended. 
For special work, tank microscopes, possessing a power of moving 
into almost any position and of stretching out to unexpected dis- 
tances, were met with. For examining the throat and bladder 
there were instruments specially devised. One long, rod-like 
microscope, carrying its own electric lamp and a cold water coil to 
keep the lamp cool, could be passed down the throat into the 
stomach, so that the progress of such diseases as cancer of the 
stomach could be watched. Mr. Crisp sought in vain among the 
members for one who would swallow the apparatus in order that 
the remainder of the guests might survey his interior anatomy. 
Another microscope clasped the human tongue tightly, so that the 
circulation of the blood could be seen in that organ. For counting 
the varying number of corpuscles in the blood of the healthy and 
diseased, there was ready all the apparatus required. Methods of 
lighting—oil, gas, and electric,—diaphragms, reflectors, condensers, 
hot stages, electrical stages, live-cells, and all that appertain to 
microscopy, found there a place. The museum is a very maze of 
brass. Fabled Argus, could he but stroll in there, might fit himself 
a tube to each one of his one thousand eyes and then not gaze on 
empty shelves. A library containing a polyglot assemblage of 
microscopical literature told of the ancient and modern marvels 
wrought by the strange forms of brass and glass close by. 
In answer to the question: Need the worker of the microscope 
despair because he cannot command all the wealth of ingenuity ? 
Mr. Crisp replied by taking up a small binocular microscope, cost- 
ing about ten pounds, and remarking, “ That is what I should 
work with!” ‘The discoveries of science have been made by means 
of simple inexpensive apparatus. After inspecting so unique a 
collection, the question naturally arises: Has the microscope 
attained perfection ? 
Many hold that it has, and that unless we get some material of 
higher refractive index than glass, we cannot hope to get much 
beyond our present power of making visible the unseen. But the 
