The Microscope. 255 



•with oftimes an aching head and^a sad heart, waiting for books, 

 instruments, or a microscopical journal to which I might apply 

 for sound advice. Now, I look upon that]" deep woods," or those 

 alphabetic days of microscopy, as my I ablest and most valued 

 microscopical schoolmaster, whose teachings have taught me 

 how to appreciate the writings of a teacher iwho has struggled 

 through the same deep woods, e'en tho' occasionally I demur a 

 little. I can not help but still love the old a, b, cs which some- 

 times taught me things I had to unlearn in later years; and 

 although this unlearning is a trouble andla difficult task, yet each 

 difficulty being conquered by one's own effort, showers a host 

 of microscopical blessings which are not apparent, or at least 

 heeded, when clothed in the garb of advice, although from good 

 authority and a free gift. 



One of the best accessories for the young microscopist to pos- 

 sess is a buU-dog-hang-on-a-tive-ness, and a determination to 

 succeed. The writer worked two years over a;frustule of P. angu- 

 latum before getting a glimpse of striation]thereon. Another year 

 was spent in search of " hexagons," but;that| proved a feat my 

 lens could not accomplish. At this period of learning my a, b, 

 cs I became the possessor of one of those " powerful glasses " 

 with which I could almost see a trace of a small " hexagon ! " 

 Right here magnification struck me and suggested that my tube 

 was too short, which, by the aid of a little card-board, was elon- 

 gated to about eleven inches when lo ! I saw some " hexagons." 

 The sight of these must have given me the " big-head " fever, for 

 I wandered through dark, deep woods, looking into that tube till 

 it was elongated to 23 feet ! ! and showed only one hexagon 

 measuring three inches in diameter. This isjno Munchausen 

 yarn, for at that time it was earnest a, b, c work, and the 3 in. 

 hexagon was seen ; but please do not press] me to give my present 

 X, y, z views of its " definition ; " suffice it tolsay it cured me of the 

 magnification mania. These three years' labor in getting a faulty 

 interpretation of the structure of P. angulatum was a schooling 

 to me in my a, b, c novitiate, that makes much^of the present 

 X, y, z work in modern microscopy sufficiently smooth sailing 

 to compensate for the struggles when in the dark deep woods of 

 a,, b, c work. 



This experience may seem as an overdrawn picture of doltish 

 ignorance to those who have begun their microscopical studies 



