ON PHOTO-MICROGRAPHY. 181 



fallacy of all this, and to show that any micro scopist 

 armed with a small text book and with a simple 

 apparatus which it is quite within the bounds of 

 possibility for him to make for himself, and having 

 no leisure time but the dark winter evenings, can, 

 after a few weeks' practice, produce pictures of 

 specimens in his collection which, for absolute 

 fidelity and beauty, are incomparably superior to 

 the highest flights of the draughtsman's skill. In 

 taking up the study of photography a beginning 

 must be made somewhere, and the tyro's first efforts 

 may as usefully, and with as great a prospect of 

 ultimate success, be directed to this branch as to 

 any other. It is a matter, not of doubt, but of cer- 

 tainty, that his first attempts will be failures, from 

 under exposure, over exposure, forgetting to draw 

 the slide and therefore no exposure fog, frills, 

 stains, pinholes, under - development, and other 

 causes ; but had he commenced with portraiture or 

 landscapes, he would have had the same dismal 

 record of good plates gone wrong, and would have 

 had the additional gratification of many an unpro- 

 ductive tramp. Therefore we would say be not 

 deterred from taking up this work because you are 

 not a photographer. Commence operations and 

 become one. It will, of course, be impossible here 

 to give any elementary instruction in photography 

 pure and simple. All that can be done is to describe 

 such apparatus and processes as are special to this 

 particular work, for all that is general a good 

 text book of photography must be consulted. 1 



1 Captain Abney's "Instruction in Photography," Piper and 

 Carter, is one of the best, but there are several well known 

 and more modern text books from which choice can be made. 



