EVENINGS 



AT THE MICROSCOPE 



CHAPTER I. 



HAIKS, FEATHERS, AND SCALES. 



Not many years ago an eminent microscopist received 

 a communication inquiring wlietlier, if a minute por- 

 tion of dried skin were submitted to him, lie could de- 

 termine it to be human skin or not. He replied, that 

 he thought he could. Accordingly a very minute frag- 

 ment was forwarded to him, somewhat resembling what 

 might be torn from the surface of an old trunk, with all 

 the hair rubbed off. 



The professor brought his microscope to bear upon 

 it, and presently found some fine hairs scattered over 

 the surface ; after carefully examining which, he pro- 

 nounced with confidence that they were human hairs, 

 and such as grew on the naked parts of the body ; and 

 Btill further, that the person who had owned them was 

 of a fair complexion. 



This was a very interesting decision, because the 

 fragment of skin was taken from the door of an old 

 church in Yorkshire ; * in the vicinity of which a tradi- 



* I am writing from memory, having no means of referring to the orig- 

 inal record, which will be found in the first (or second) volume of the 

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