Tue Microscope. 161 
THE TELEPHONE OF 1664. 
And as glasses have highly promoted our seeing, so ’tis 
not improbable, but that there may be found many me- 
chanical inventors to improve our other senses, of hear- 
ing, smelling, tasting, touching. ’Tis not impossible to hear 
a whisper a furlong’s distance, it having been already done; 
and perhaps the nature of the thing would not make it more 
impossible, though that furlong should be ten times multiplied. 
And though some famous authors have affirmed it impossible to 
hear through the thinnest plate of Muscovy glass, yet I know a 
way, by which it is easy enough to hear one speak through a 
walla yard thick. It has not yet been thoroughly examined, 
how far Otocousticons may be improved, nor what other ways 
there may be of quickening our hearing, or conveying sound 
through other bodies than the air; for that is not the only med- 
ium, I can assure the reader that I have, by the help of a dis- 
tended wire, propagated the sound to a very considerable dis. 
tance in an instant, or with as seemingly quick a motion as 
that of light, at least, incomparably swifter than that, which at 
the same time was propagated through the air; and this not only 
in a straight line, or direct, but in one bended in many angles.— 
From works of Robert Hooke, published in 1664. 
WHAT TO WORK WITH. 
It is often a matter of question with the beginner what ob- 
jects shall be examined with the microscope. 
The answer, roughly speaking, would be everything; for 
whatever is not already small enough, can by proper treatment 
be reduced to the proper dimensions. For this purpose Nature 
has a great storehouse of hidden treasures, which she is ever 
ready to render up to the dilligent seeker. Field and woodland, 
hill and valley, earth and water, are ever at hand, teeming with 
wonders, many of which, too minute for the eye of man, only 
reveal their beauties to the microscope,—the king of the in- 
visible. 
If you understand taxidermy, you will find that the birds 
and mammals which you handle will afford abundant material 
for your microscope. 
