MODERN INVENTIONS AND THEIR RESULTS. 17 



Who, indeed, can anticipate the discoveries that 

 may still be made of the great and marvellous 

 works of God through the use of this little instru- 

 ment ! Our own gifted countryman, Sir David 

 Brewster, to whom the Microscope owes so many 

 of its excellencies, and who, above all others, is 

 entitled to speak of its future possible perform- 

 ances, hopes that lenses of still higher power than 

 any now used may be obtained, from employing, 

 in their formation, fluids or diamonds, instead 

 of glass, as at present ; and thus writes, in his 

 recent article on the subject in the last issue of 

 the Encyclopedia Britannica : " The Micro- 

 scope promises to be the means of disclosing the 

 structure and the laws of matter, and of making 

 as important discoveries in the infinitely minute 

 world as the Telescope has done in that which is 

 infinitely distant." x By some, it is indeed main- 

 tained that the Microscope has already attained, 

 as regards its structure, the highest possible ex- 

 cellence. Mr. Quekett and Dr. Carpenter, two 

 of the greatest authorities in England, have 

 recorded it as their decided opinion that the 

 Compound Achromatic Microscope is the most 



1 Encydop. Brit. Art. Microscope, vol. xiv. p. 763. 

 B 



