ON THE PREPARATION OF OBJECTS FOR 

 THE MICROSCOPE.* 



In the matter of microscopic objects and preparations, I ac- 

 knowledge myself the advocate of the beautiful. In this new 

 world which the microscope has opened up to us, I seek mainly, 

 if not only, for that which is fair and lovely to behold. In the 

 estimation of some of the professors of this science, I am afraid 

 that this acknowledgment will place me in the class of those who 

 make of the microscope a plaything, and who turn a means of 

 instruction into a means of amusement only. But to me it seems 

 that the field of microscopic research is so vast, and the harvest 

 of instructive lessons so abundant, that I may be excused for 

 gathering only the flowers. 



The specialist and the expert, for the purpose of personal in- 

 formation and judgment, will have occasion, and ought, to exam- 

 ine the minutest and the dryest details in the line of his specialty. 

 But he who would simply draw interesting lessons from nature, 

 or instruction for the uninformed, need not go beyond the beau- 

 tiful and the attractive in the list of microscopic objects. The 

 facts of science and the range of discovery can be amply, and I 

 think best illustrated by preparations which strike the eye and 

 command the attention. 



To illustrate my meaning, I will show you later this evening a 

 longitudinal section through the fibro-vascular bundles in the 

 leaf -stem of the castor-oil plant. It is, I think, one of the most 

 beautiful objects in structural botany, and at the same time it 

 opens up to us some of the most interesting and puzzling quest- 



*A Paper read before the Rochester Microscopical Society, Dec. llth, 1879. 



