The Microscope. 21 



flood of light, for it not only blurs out detail but will force you 

 to abandon the microscope long before you become old. 



It must not be inferred that I make a wholesale condemnation 

 of modern accessories, for many of them at times, for special 

 work, become valuable adjuncts to the microscope. The 

 Iris diaphragm is emphatically endorsed by the human eye ; 

 Nature often gives us the hint for improvement, if we would 

 only follow her teachings. A first class, wide angle substage 

 condenser, dry and immersion, does good work when properly 

 used under test objects and expert research, yet as a constant 

 adjunct to the microscope, as many seem to use it, my ex- 

 perience condemns it in favor of the mirror alone. 



If the young microscopist has a fat bank account I see no 

 objection to his making a complete museum of his den for the 

 exhibit of microscopical accessories ; yet the student of limited 

 means need not feel discouraged by the absence of these. A 

 well made, low priced stand, a few first class objectives, a bull's 

 eye and a flat wick kerosene lamp are suflficient to make one a 

 microscopist, if he has the patience and perseverence to master 

 the manipulation of them ; he must learn not only " how to 

 use " but "how to see." 



Of eye pieces, a two and a one inch Huyghenian, and a half 

 inch solid cover the demands of the upper end of my working 

 tube. 



With advancing years, past experience inclines me more and 

 more to the use of the simplest means which will give 

 the desired or sought for result. Should any of my " brother 

 mics." differ with me in this, like the school boy, I crave they 

 will /'pass my imperfections by; " not from extreme youth but 

 old age, though of sufficient vigor still to read under the micro- 

 scope, with unabated interest, the volumes written by the pen of 

 Nature. 



EDITOR'S 



^^ DEPARTMENT 



N one of her books Ida Pfeiffer says that any other woman 

 might travel as much if she would leave her bandboxes at 



