14 The Microscope. 



merit. On this point Dr. Dallinger says (italics his) : " It is 

 largely to amateur microscopy that the desire and motive for the 

 great improvements in object glasses and e3'^e-pieces for the last 

 twenty years is due. The men who have compared the qualities 

 of respective lenses, and have had specific ideas as to how these 

 could become possessed of still higher qualities, have been com- 

 paratively rarel}' those who have employed the microscope for 

 professional and educational purposes. They have simply used 

 — emplo3"ed in the execution of their professional work — the 

 best with which the practical optician could supply them. It 

 has been b}^ amateur microscopists that the opticians have been 

 incited to the production of new and improved objectives. But 

 it is the men who work in our biological and medical schools 

 that ultimately reap the immense advantage — not only of greatly 

 improved, but in the end of greatly cheapened object-glasses. It 

 is on this account that the amateur microscopist should have 

 within his reach a handbook dealing with the principles of his 

 instrument and his subject." 



The book contains no " padding." The fact is especially mani- 

 fest in the chapter treating of accessory apparatus. Here the 

 editor had a chance to make the book two or three times as large 

 as it is b}^ describing all the superseded optical appliances of 

 the past, with all the useless suggestions of the present, that 

 see the sun in the periodical literature of the time only justly 

 to die at a touch of the light. Nothing but the essential and 

 the best now in use is referred to ; all that are unimportant or 

 that have been supplemented by better being omitted. 



The readers of The Mccroscope for the last two years have 

 become familiar with the beliefs and the suggestions of a writer 

 who has thought it best to write under the pseudonj^m of " An 

 Amateur." This gentleman has in an emphatic way condemned 

 the microscope stand called the " Continental," and for this he 

 has been subjected to some severe, not to say rabid, criticism. 

 He acted according to his belief, and had the courage of his 

 convictions, feeling that the teaching was correct and could, in 

 spite of the criticisms of prominent histologists, do nothing but 

 good. And he has been disposed to defend himself, yet he need 

 not have made that much effort if he could have known what so 

 high an authority as Dr. Dallinger would have to say on the 

 subject in this seventh edition of the authoritive Carpenter. It 



