52 THE MICROSCOPICAL NEWS. 
PREPARING ILLUSTRATIONS OF 
MICROSCOPICAL OBJECTS. 
N our last number, upon page 19, we endeavoured to show how 
good illustrations of microscopical objects might be produced as 
blocks by the process of photo-zincography. We did not of course 
intend to convey the idea that such blocks would equal the best 
copperplate engravings, or indeed surpass the very excellent wood- 
cuts which have appeared from time to time illustrating microscopical 
subjects, but we do intend our readers to understand that these 
blocks, being facsimilies of the microscopist’s own drawings, are 
more likely to be truthful representations of nature than those made 
by artists who never have seen the organ or organism in question, 
who do not understand either its formation or its functions, but 
touch up the rough sketches with which they are supplied, in order 
to produce a good picture from an artistic point of view. 
No one but those actually acquainted with such work as this, can 
form any estimate of the difficulties which stand in the way of 
obtaining truthful pictures of the subject when once the limner has 
been called in to exercise his ingenuity upon it. It was once the 
fashion, but, alas! nearly extinct, for the investigator to employ his 
own artist, who, working under his own supervision, produced 
drawing after drawing, until, finally, the patient investigator was 
satisfied that the illustration was really a faithful representation of 
what he had seen upon the stage. 
We cannot all of us keep artists to daily or even hourly record 
what we see under the microscope, but most microscopists can 
readily learn to draw from nature what they have observed. ‘The 
camera lucida will help them, by enabling them to easily reproduce 
the outlines, while the details can be afterwards put in by the eye 
alone. 
If, however, the observer is not able to draw evena ia. picture of 
an object, photo-micrography is still open to him ; a photograph can 
be taken and transferred to wood, this serving the engraver as a 
guide almost as well as the more elaborately finished pencil sketch, 
provided he be somewhat acquainted with his subject. 
There is a danger in this method of procedure which it is the 
object of this paper to point out. The illustrations, Figs. 20 and 21, 
are amongst our experiences in this matter, and it would be well 
for us to go into details, in order that those who require illustra- 
tions may not be led into similar pitfalls. 
Fig. 20 was produced from a photograph, taken by ourselves, to 
illustrate Mr. Rideout’s paper upon Dy#iscus marginalis for our 
