IIALF-HOTJES WITH THE MICROSCOPE, 



CHAPTER I. 



A HALF-HOUR ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE 

 MICROSCOPE. 



THE Microscope is often regarded as merely a 

 toy, and only capable of affording a certain amount 

 of amusement. However true this might have 

 been when its manufacture was less perfectly 

 understood, it is now an instrument of so much im- 

 portance, that scarcely any other can vie with it in 

 the interest of its discoveries. By its means man 

 increases the power of his vision, so that he thus 

 gains a greater knowledge of the nature of all 

 objects by which he is surrounded. What eyes 

 would be to the man who is born blind, the Micro- 

 scope is to the man who has eyes. It opens a new 

 world to him, and thousands of objects whose form 

 and shape, and even existence, he could only imagine, 

 can now be observed with accuracy. . 



Nor is this increase of knowledge without great 

 advantages. Take for instance the study of plants 

 and animals. These beings are endowed with what 

 we call life : they grow and perform certain living 

 functions ; but as to the mode of their growth, and 

 the way in which their functions were performed, 

 little or nothing was known till the Microscope 

 revealed their minute structure, and showed how 



