INTRODUCTORY 7 



endeavored to impart the same to others in 

 the simplest manner possible, and thus save 

 them, perhaps, many an hour of work and 

 experimenting, which I have gone through 

 with unaided. The large standard works of 

 Sternberg, Pringle, Spitta and others, are too 

 learned, too scientific, for the beginner, and 

 therefore of but little use to him. The smaller 

 publications, all English in so far as I know 

 are really of much less use, being merely a 

 compilation of "say so's" without any practical 

 value. I earnestly hope such may not be the 

 case with the present little work. It has been 

 written, after several years' labor upon a book 

 of much wider scope on the same subject (yet 

 unpublished), to fill a supposed want, which 

 the latter cannot do. It is written in the first 

 person as being more familiar with, I trust, my 

 sympathetic circle of readers than is possible 

 to the impersonal we. It is sent forth with the 

 earnest hope that in its perusal may be found 

 help for some earnest beginners in the fascinat- 

 ing and important art of photo-micrography. 

 And it is possible that among those who 

 "know it all" there may be a few who will 

 gather a seed or two of further information 

 from the many sown broadcast throughout its 

 pages. 



