The Microscope. 11 



THE NEW EDITION OF CARPENTER'S " THE MICRO- 

 SCOPE AND ITS REVELATIONS," EDITED BY THE 

 REV. W. H. DALLINGER, LL. D.* 



THE first edition of the well-known " Carpenter" was published 

 in 1856, the seventh in 1891, a new edition appearing on the 

 average once ever}" five 3"ears. From the first it took its place 

 at the head of all treatises on the optical and mechanical con- 

 struction of the microscope, and although similar books have 

 multiplied, not one has equalled this, which has become the 

 standard and a microscopical classic in the English speaking 

 world of microscopists. No better book has ever been written 

 with the action and the use of the instrument as its subject, 

 none more comprehensive, none more learned, none less open to 

 criticism. The reviewer might drop his pen at this point, and 

 all would have been said ; yet, whilst that might be just toward 

 the book, it would leave the reader unsatisfied and the reviewer 

 with much struggling for expression. 



It was not long after Dr. Carpenter's horrible death in 1885, 

 that a new edition of his classical work was desired by investi- 

 gating and reading microscopists. The advances in microscopi- 

 cal optics had been so great, the model instruments had been so 

 vastly improved, and objectives had undergone what so nearh^ 

 resembled a revolution in structure, that the old book had be- 

 come well nigh worthless as a reference manual. Not even in 

 the last edition, which the lamented author himself revised, did 

 he really and unqualifiedly accept defeat and a place on the los- 

 ing side in the battle of the angles. He never emphatically 

 taught that the widest angled objectives had won the day, as 

 they even then had won it, and in this respect his work was 

 lagging behind the microscopy of even ten years ago. 



No such criticism can be made of the present edition. It is 

 up to the present knowledge of this part of the subject ; indeed, 

 it goes beyond what some microscopists will be disposed to ac- 

 cept without at least some uneasy movement as they sit before 



*" The Microscope and its Eevelations, " by the late William B. Carpenter, 

 F. E. S , seventh edition, edited by the Rev. W. H. Dallinger, F. R. S. 

 With twenty-one plates and eight hundred wood engravings. 8vo., pp. 

 XVIII, 1100, Philadelphia: P. Blackiston, Son & Co. Price, $6.50. 



