Thk Microscope. 109" 



kingdoms, witli regard to their fundamental physical properties 

 — irritability and contractility. In the beginning of the year 

 1865 therefore, living matter or protoplasm or sarcode of plants 

 and animals could be defined as " A mass which is diaphanous, 

 semi-liquid and viscous, extensible but not elastic^, liomogeneous, 

 i e, without structure, without apparent organization'', contain- 

 ing scattered granules and endowed with irritability and con- 

 tractility." 



LEAVES FROM 'a MICROSCOPICAL NOTl^^BOOK, 



GREYIJEARD. 

 II. 



THE earnest microseoi)ist at work is often under a pressure of 

 fine-adjustment, call it either vibrations, crankism, or what- 

 ever you may, which is sufficient to annihilate an ordinary mor- 

 tal ! Even a microscopist is not such an extraordinary being 

 but that at times his refractive index becomes so high or low- 

 that liis personal equation needs a little adjustment as a correc- 

 tion for this pressure. What greater relief in such cases than a 

 little microscopical nonsense, even if it should be found in a 

 technical journal? — it often calls forth earnest thought according 

 to the individual bent of mind of the reader, leading to valuable- 

 results in science. Who but the reader of a microscopical journal 

 can so well appreciate and have as expressive a smile over the 

 fact of the non-technical press making an old man " resolve a 

 pustule of AmpUplura peUuclda with the one-sixth of a wide angle 

 objection ! " Is it not time the schoolmaster should be abroad 

 among the microscopical heathen? In passing, let me state in 

 response to several inquiries, that the old man on the cover of 

 Bausch and Lomb's catalogue is not " Greybeard." Although 

 ugly enough to be he, " taint a bit like," for he never squints onfr 

 eye up, in imitation of a green persimmon pucker, while peering 

 down the tube with the other; and surely here is a fact suf- 

 ficiently " wise " to offset the " otherwise " of this bit of infor- 

 mation. Let the young microscopist make note of this fact for 

 it is one that will even unbend a starchy professor to the extent 

 of admitting its value, although he may anathamatize the setting 

 of the jewel. The effort of keeping the unused eye closed has a 



.J DujardiD had called it elastic. We shall see later whether there is any reason whv" 

 ttiis statement of Dujardm's should have been rejected. 

 2 Dujardin maintained that it must be organized. 



