OF THE MICROSCOPE. 33 



one who has been accustomed to employ a good microscope 

 cannot recognize them. It has unquestionably done a great 

 great deal to impede the progress of microscopy in this country, 

 and we have been led to give this extended description of it, 

 chiefly because so many editors and clergymen have praised it 

 in the highest terms. It has even been patented, although the 

 principle upon which it is constructed is very old; but then we 

 must remember that under our present administration the 

 patent office seems to be conducted rather for the dtscourage- 

 ment than the encouragement of progress and invention. We 

 daily see patents issued for old and worthless devices, while it 

 is well-known that the author of a really meritorious inven- 

 tion will have the hardest work to obtain protection. 



Of the Novelty, Globe, and other similar microscopes, it is 

 unnecessary to speak. In all the microscopes of this kind that 

 we have seen, the optical part is utterly worthless. The lenses 

 are mere fused globules of glass, and they distort beyond recog- 

 nition the image of any object. 



Strange to say, however, even this fact has been used as an 

 argument to sell them. They have been sold chiefly by news- 

 dealers and stationers, and as the purchasers did not know how 

 any given object ought to appear, the fact that it looked so very 

 different from what they expected was considered an evidence 

 of the power of the microscope ! ! 



In regard to all microscopes in which fused globules are 

 used, it must be remembered that the lower the power of the 

 lens the more apt it is to be imperfect. No lens of this kind, 

 magnifying from 100 to 150 times, (according to the estimates 

 of those who deal in them, which, however, is in fact only from 

 ten to twelve times, as measured by proper methods), can be 

 good for anything. On the other hand, it must be borne in 

 mind that when we attempt to examine objects under high 

 powers, obtained by the use of very small single lenses, we 

 subject our eyes to an almost destructive strain. 



