G54 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



with (lr:\wi^ swordf, but with drawn diagrams which most certainly 

 proved, if they proved anything, that an angk^ of more than 180^ was an 

 optical impossibility, and that, no matter what people might tJtinlc they 

 saw, they at all events could not see round a corner ; for, as old 

 John Trumbull wrote, — 



' Optics slinrp it needs, I ween. 

 To see what is not to be seen.' 



But now how perverse and prejudiced all tliat opposition seems, and 

 how simple and reasonable the new system of numerical aperture is seen 

 to be! 



Before our time the fight was fought over the binocular body, tho 

 achromatic objective, and even the compound principle itself." 



The author then quotes from Hill's ' Essays in Natural History and 

 Philosophy ' (1752), a passage in which the general superiority of tho 

 simple over the comi^ouud Microscope is insisted upon, and refers to an 

 " amusing case of circumstantial mendacity, or of clever fiction," quoted 

 from Father Noel P'Argonne* in that curious work attributed to 

 Dr. John Campbell, entitled ' Hermippus Redivivus, or tho Sage's 

 Triumph over Old Age and the Grave,' in which is mentioned a 

 Microscope which not only showed the atoms of Ejiicurus and the 

 subtile matter of Des Cartes, but the secret of personal sympathy and 

 antipathy which was shown to dejiend on the similarity or contrariety 

 of the perspired vapours. A recent writer f has also described " an 

 original arrangement of lenses," by which he has " hit upon the awful 

 discovery of the dejmrting soul with its astral covering ! " 



These matters were introduced by the author into the subject with 

 which ho was dealing, because he " cannot see anything better in under- 

 rating the value of our mechanical appliances than in over-estimating 

 the capabilities of our lenses." 



Death of Mr. Webb. — We regret to have to record the death of 

 Mr. Webb, tho well-known engraver of the Lord's Prayer in characters 

 so minute that the whole Bible could (in the case of one slide in our 

 possession) be written fifty-nine times in a square inch. In this and 

 similar feats Mr. Webb was without a rival, and his name may fitly bo 

 linked with that of Nobert as one of the great masters of the art of 

 minute engraving with a diamond on glass. 



American Postal Microscopical Club. 



[Commcuts ou 13th Ann. Kepurt.] The Microscope, VIII. (1888) p. 149. 



Bid WELL, W. D. — The Microscope in Medicine. 



Amer. Man. Micr. Journ., IX. (1888) pp. 108-9. 

 Bowman, F. H. — Does Science aid Faith? II. 



[Contams illustrations drawn from the Microscope.] 



ChrisUan World Pulpit, 1888, Muy 30th, pp. 318-50. 



CouvREUR, E. — le Microscope et ses Applications a I'etude des Vegetaux et 



des Animaux. (The Microscoiie and its apj^licatious to tho study of plants and 



animals.) 350 pp. and 112 figs., 8vo, Paris, 1888. 



Examinations in Microscopy. 



[" Tlie examination in microscopy passed by the graduating class of the 

 St. Louis College of Pharmacy, and published in the ' National Druggist,' is 



* ' Melange d'histoirc et de lite'rature, par M. de Vigncul-Marvillc,' Paris, 1700. 

 t ' The Hidden Way across the Threshold,' by J, C Street, Boston. 



