EVENINGS AT THE MICROSCOPE 



CHAPTER I 



HAIBS, FEATHERS, AND SCALES 



NOT many years ago an eminent microscopist received 

 a communication inquiring whether, if a minute 

 portion of dried skin were submitted to him, h 

 could determine it to be human skin or not. He replied 

 that he thought he could. Accordingly a very minute frag- 

 ment was forwarded to him, somewhat resembling what 

 might be torn from the surface of an old trunk, with all 

 the hair rubbed off. 



The professor brought his microscope to bear upon it, 

 and presently found some fine hairs scattered over the sur- 

 face; after carefully examining which, he pronounced with 

 confidence that they were human hairs, and such as grew 

 on the naked parts of the body; and still further, that 

 the person who had owned them was of a fair complexion. 



This was a very interesting decision, because the frag- 

 ment of skin was taken from the door of an old church in 

 Yorkshire; * in the vicinity of which a tradition is pre- 



1 I am writing from memory, having no means of referring to the original 

 record, which will be found in the first (or second) volume of the "Transactions 

 of the Microscopical Society" of London. The general facts, however, may be 

 Depended on. 



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