PRACTICAL MICROSCOPY. 



CHAPTER I. 

 INTRODUCTION. 



DURING the past few years rapid strides have been made in 

 the manufacture and supply of cheap and at the same time 

 really good working microscopes ; and these having been 

 extensively purchased, have extended and disseminated a 

 taste for the study of minute things, in those to whom the 

 possession of a microscope a few years ago seemed a luxury 

 to be only dreamt of. 



Good works treating upon the practical use of the 

 microscope and its accessories, have hitherto been of so 

 expensive a character as to be certainly beyond the reach 

 of most students, and many who might have been led 

 into the paths of scientific research, have probably kept 

 their instruments to gratify the curiosity of themselves and 

 their friends. Such persons often think that the possession 

 of a microscope must always make a microscopist, and in 

 order to study objects, that it is only necessary to place 

 them on the stage of the microscope when their hidden 

 structure will manifest itself at once. No greater mistake 

 could ever be made. It is very desirable that the student 

 should be thoroughly acquainted with the physics and 

 chemistry of the science, for when once these are mastered 



B 



