HALF-HOURS WITH THE MICROSCOPE, 



CHAPTER I . 



A HALF-HOUE ON THE STEUCTUEE OF THE 

 MICEOSCOPE. 



THE Microscope is often regarded merely as a 

 toy, capable of affording only a certain amount of 

 amusement. However much this might have been 

 the case when its manufacture was less perfectly 

 understood, it is now an instrument of so much 

 importance that scarcely any other can vie with 

 it in the interest we attach to the discoveries made 

 by its aid. By its means man increases the power 

 of his vision, so that he thus gains a greater know- 

 ledge of the nature of all objects by which he is 

 surrounded. What eyes would be to the man who 

 is born blind, the Microscope is to the man who 

 sees only with his naked eye. It opens a new 

 world to him, and thousands of objects whose form 

 and shape, and even existence, he could only ima- 

 gine, can now be observed with accuracy. 



Nor is this increase of knowledge without great 

 advantages. Take for instance the study of plants 

 and animals. Both 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 fe^\N v 

 thei*- Carious parts were related to each other. The 

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