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CHAPTER V. 



On the Terms employed in Microscopic Science. 



IT has been said that every science has its own language, 

 and we often find that words which in one science ex- 

 press certain ideas, do, when transferred to another, 

 convey to our minds a sense entirely different. 



Although the study of the microscope does not require 

 a very extensive vocabulary, yet it is rendered more 

 easy by a previous acquaintance with those terms which 

 continually occur to the microscopist. 



The following chapters are mechanical descriptions of 

 the microscope, together with a discussion of the question 

 as to whether there is a best possible way of constructing 

 its mounting, or mechanical part. The importance of 

 the latter must be evident, when we consider that 

 although we may possess the most perfect and finest 

 corrected and adjusted lenses, yet if their mounting or 

 stand be defective in its construction, we shall be 

 deprived of a great portion of their value, by being 

 unable to make them show in an efficient manner those 

 subjects which are within the scope of the instrument, 

 while many classes of objects cannot be viewed by them 

 in any way whatever. 



In the present chapter, I shall merely give a succinct 



