142 THE SEVEN FOLLIES OF SCIENCE 



delicacy of freedom, are absolutely destitute of shake, a 

 union of requisites very difficult of fulfilment, but quite 

 indispensable to the satisfactory performance of the ap- 

 paratus. 



I have no information in regard to the present where- 

 abouts of any of the specimens turned out by Mr. Peters, 

 and inquiry in London, among persons likely to know, has 

 not supplied any information on the subject. 



There was, however, another micrographer, Mr. William 

 Webb, of London, who succeeded in producing some mar- 

 vellous results. Epigrams and also the Lord's Prayer 

 written in the one-thousandth part of a square inch have 

 been freely distributed. Mr. Webb also produced a few 

 copies of the second chapter of the Gospel, according to St. 

 John, written on the scale of the whole Bible, to a little 

 more than three-quarters of a square inch, and of the Lord's 

 Prayer written on the scale of the whole Bible eight times 

 on a square inch. Mr. Webb died about fifteen years ago, 

 and I believe he has had no successor in the art. Speci- 

 mens of his work are quite scarce, most of them having 

 found their way into the cabinets of public Museums and 

 Societies, who are unwilling to part with them. The late 

 Dr. Woodward, Director of the Army Medical Museum, 

 Washington, D.C., procured two of them on special order 

 for the Museum. Mr. Webb had brought out these fine 

 writings as tests for certain qualities of the microscope, and 

 it was to " serve as tests for high-power objectives " that 

 Dr. Woodward procured the specimens now in the micro- 

 scopical department of the Museum. I am so fortunate as 

 to have in my possession two specimen's of Mr. Webb's 

 work. One is an ordinary microscopical glass slide, three 

 inches by one, and in the center is a square speck which 



