12 PRACTICAL PHOTO-MICROGRAPHY. 



by a graphic method of microscopic images. That difficulties, 

 and often great ones, present themselves is matter of fact, but 

 to smooth over some of these difficulties, to evade some and 

 to conquer others, it is the writer's ambition to assist the 

 reader. 



Two classes of photo-micrographer are met with in the 

 ordinary course ; the first a microscopist of more or less ex- 

 perience and skill, who suddenly bethinks himself that photog- 

 raphy seems an easy and rapid way of graphically represent- 

 ing his objects and his observations ; he never doubts that he 

 may in a very short time master the elementary troubles of 

 photography, and accordingly he embarks in a cockle-shell on 

 the most stormy waves of a great and growing science. The 

 other class of photo-micrographer is the photographer, usually 

 the amateur, who thinks he has conquered the realms of land- 

 scape and portraiture, and sighs only for fresh conquests ; and 

 so he plunges blindly into the science which of all others re- 

 quires practice, perseverence and acute powers of observation. 

 The results are shame and calamity to photo-micrography 

 as a utility, as an educator, as a science. Photo-micrography 

 has not yet taken the place it deserves, demands, and shall 

 finally take. It is much to be regretted, but it is true, that we 

 have so many books on photo-micrography written by men 

 who are only smatterers in microscopy and totally ignorant of 

 anything but the very rudiments of photography. Much has 

 been well written on the subject, but the science is advancing 

 so rapidly that what was in the front one week is " exploded " 

 and improved out of knowledge the next week. 



Even were it desirable, our space makes it impossible, to 

 enter at any length on the history of photo-micrography. Some 

 assign the credit of the first photo-micrograph to one person, 

 some to another; but we confine ourselves to saying that 

 among the earliest workers in this line were Wedgewood, Rev. 

 J. B. Reade (about 1837), Mr. Dancer (1840), Mons. Donne 

 (1840), Mr. Archer (1851), etc. Among the early workers 

 was Dr. R. L. Maddox, admittedly the suggestor of gelatine 

 emulsion for photography, and still alive to view the results 

 of his own work and talents, and to lend a helping hand and 



