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_ neighbourhood which are susceptible of microscopical investi- 
gation, he will, unless he is either very well read, or else 
quite incapable of surprise, be astonished to find how blank 
a page of geology, more especially in English books, this is ; 
and if he will then set himself to fill up some of the gaps 
thus discovered, he will, we think, arrive at results not only 
more valuable to science, but more satisfactory to himself than 
he is likely to attain by following the beaten track of mounting 
diatoms and putting small flies in Canada balsam. In the 
one case he will be able to put on record facts, which may be 
of the highest importance in solving great geological pro- 
blems; in the other, he will be fortunate if, after collecting 
innumerable specimens, he hit upon a species differing ever 
so little from those already described. It is true that the 
methods are laborious, and the number of completed speci- 
mens may be comparatively small, but we may be permitted 
to point out that the value of a specimen to the preparer 
(supposing it to be successful in showing what it is meant to 
show) is simply proportionate to the amount of labour and 
time he has spent uponit. There is a genuine satisfaction 
about the production of an object which is really a work of 
art; which it has taken labour and skill to develop out of 
some shapeless mass, far greater than that derived from a 
dozen “* easy” objects, which when put up are after all not 
so good as when they were fresh, and whose only superiority 
to natural specimens is in their permanence. 
The value of a miscellaneous series of specimens, then, 
depends so entirely upon the “‘ technik,” as the Germans say ; 
—upon the art which has been employed to produce them, 
that we could wish Mr. Martin had given more prominence to 
those objects, such as rocks, which require serious preparation, 
than to simple figures of insects, &c., which would seem more 
fitly to belong to systematic works of natural history. Some 
good directions for preparing rock specimens (for instance) 
would have been both more novel and more valuable than the 
few hints about mounting which he has thrown together. 
We do not, however, wish to judge the book by any 
other standard than that to which it appeals. It is intended 
for-amateurs, and to amateurs we can fairly recommend the 
attempt to reproduce these specimens as a useful preliminary 
training for more systematic studies. If they succeed in 
putting up as well as Mr. Martin has done the objects he 
has represented, they will have acquired a technical skill 
which may be put to good service in scientific research. 
Research in some form or other is, we must repeat, the goal 
at which all microscopical observers should aim. 
