March 9, 1888.] 



SCIENCE. 



hundred dollars, and with the most elaborate accessories ever 

 offered to the public, — no doubt 'brazen elephantiasis,' but not an 

 American instrument. The latest Zeiss instruments brought to 

 this city have just the same nickle plating and lacquer as the 

 American ; and without lacquer any instrument would be soon 

 worthless. 



In i860 I used a French upright, then successively a Nachet 

 best, Zentmayer, Beck small best. Popular, and in my laboratory 

 Bausch and Lomb Model and Harvard. In 1875 I brought over a 

 lot of Zeiss's work. I use the inclined position always, except for 

 watch-glasses, or such large vessels. Have used fluids contantly, 

 on tissues, in the examination of fibres according to Vetillart, and 

 numberless examinations of urine, as well as chemical work. The 

 capillary attraction between cover and slide is sufficient, as a rule, 

 to hold all that is required. 



I do not see that the disclaimer in the last article affects the state- 

 ments made in the ' Complaint.' Histological work is the investiga- 

 tion of the minute structure of plants and animals, and this is just 

 what microscopes are made and used for in this country in biologi- 

 cal laboratories and by practising physicians. The number of ama- 

 teurs is very small, and, of instruments used for petrographical 

 and chemical work e.xclusively, still smaller. In the Washington 

 society, twenty-six members are physicians, nearly all in practice, 

 seven are teachers and investigators, and seven are amateurs. 



The American stand has been developed from, and has re-acted 

 upon, the English stand, — a different and radically better type than 

 the German. There are probably as many microscopes made and 

 used by English-speaking people as by all the rest of the world. 

 A Beck was exhibited at one of the late meetings of the Washing- 

 ton Society numbered over 1 5,000. This means over that number 

 of jointed instruments in use, of one English maker, of which about 

 one-third are in this country. The latest Zeiss here is 11,468 

 (August), and all but his lowest styles have a joint. 



Most English microscopes have a joint, — a feature of the Ger- 

 mans first despised, then condemned, and finally adopted. The 

 jointed stand does all that the upright does, and much that the up- 

 right cannot do. The cost of the joint is about two dollars. The 

 Zeiss stand VII, a and b, is said by Zeiss to be " especially suitable 

 for laboratory use." It has no joint. Its stage is 67 by 72 mm., 

 and 86 mm. high. The price, with two objectives and two eye- 

 pieces, is $34; with another objective, $41. The Zentmayer Histo- 

 logical (American) was put on the market in 1876. It has a joint. 

 Its stage is 65 by 95 mm., and 76 mm. high. With one eye-piece and 

 two objectives and case, it costs $38 and $46. The Bausch and Lomb 

 Harvard has a stage 85 by 90 mm., and 82 mm. high. With two ob- 

 jectives and two eye-pieces, the price is $43. It is well known that the 

 discounts here are larger than on foreign catalogue prices ; and in 

 quantity these American instruments, with lower and broader stages 

 than the foreign instruments of equal grade, can be purchased cheap- 

 er. No one is obliged to buy a slide-carrier unless wanted. It is 

 priced separate. The glass slip stage was an American invention, 

 was adopted by the French and English makers, and is stated by Dr. 

 Carpenter, in his last edition, " to be the most perfect yet devised." 

 The Iris diaphragm is not generally applied by American makers 

 to college microscopes. 



The prices of German low-power objectives are less than Ameri- 

 can, but high powers are dearer. A Zeiss ^Jj costs $90, a ^*£f$ii2 to 

 $140, to which must be added the cost of special eye-pieces. A Spen- 

 cer first-clasE dry ^^; costs $60, a ^^ homo immersion $80, both high 

 angle; a professional 1 of 175 B.A., $40. If these prices are aver- 

 aged with the low powers, the American lenses are cheapest, with- 

 out any regard to duty. We want three classes of microscopes, — 

 the college, the professional, and the complete. The first may have 

 less finish and no substage fittings, the second with substage fittings 

 and better finish, the third with graduated circles, etc. All require 

 a spreading tripod base, a joint, a Jackson arm sitting square on the 

 trunnions, a firm clamp to the latter, and the arm cast solid from 

 the axis of the swinging tail-piece to the barrel. 



Our catalogues should give for each instrument the height and 

 size of stage, and the length of barrel. 



There has already been much discussion on the uniform construc- 

 tion of microscopes at the meetings of the American Association of 

 Microscopists. A resolution in this direction offered by the writer 



last summer was ruled out on the ground that the subject was ex- 

 hausted for the present. An important contribution on tube-length 

 read at Pittsburgh by Professor Gage has already appeared in 

 Queen' s Bulletin, and will be published in the forthcoming Proceed- 

 ings of said society. 



Colleges pay no duty on their instruments : hence their selection 

 is not affected by the tariff. As to the principle, I am an American 

 citizen and a teacher, and, other things being equal, I prefer to buy 

 my microscopes of my neighbor, who will send his children to my 

 school, and who, if he grows rich making microscopes, may endow 

 my college, rather than to send afar, to one who is not likely to be 

 interested in my success or that of my country. I know professors 

 of political economy do not teach this view ; but most business-men 

 act according to it, though the principle may be unwisely applied. 

 Under it as the rule of our national polity, we have made the best 

 and cheapest watches, telescopes, and apparatus for the investiga- 

 tion of radiant heat ; and, if the users of microscopes will only co- 

 operate fairly with the makers thereof, we shall soon have the best 

 and cheapest microscopes the world has yet seen. Many who con- 

 demn protection, ask for international copyright ; and one of their 

 arguments is, that, by raising the price of foreign literature, it will 

 make a better market for domestic productions. So it will, and 

 tend to shut out some excellent foreign work, and is so far just as 

 ' absurd and senseless ' as the duty on microscopes. 



For details on the above matters, see 'Ra.'^ti'SG, Das Mikroskop, 

 vol. iii. p. 262 ; Mayall's ' Cantor Lectures ; ' and Hon. J. D. 

 Cox, ' Microscopic Work,' American Journal of Microscopy for 

 1879, p. 131. W. H. Seaman, M.D. 



Howard University, Washington, D.C., Feb. 25. 



Indian Wrist-Guards. 



In a review of Professor Morse's ' Methods of Arrow-Release ' in 

 Science last year (ix. p. 1 22), I ventured to suggest " whether it is 

 not possible that the so-called 'pierced tablets,' which are described 

 and figured by Professor Rau {Archeoloi^ical Collection of the 

 Smithsonian Institution, p. 23) and other writers, and which have 

 given rise to so much discussion among American antiquaries, may 

 not have been guards worn to protect the wrist against the recoil 

 of the bow-string." Since writing this, I have happened upon an 

 article by R. S. Robertson, in The A?nerican Antiquarian (i. p. 

 100), in which he advances the same opinion. He says, " A short 

 time since, when exhibiting one to an old gentleman, who was a 

 clerk for a fur-trader, while the Miamis still occupied the region 

 around Fort Wayne, he assured me he had often seen them in use, 

 and that they were worn on the left wrist to ward off the blow of 

 the bow-string in hunting." I have lately noticed statements in 

 early descriptions of the customs of the Indians, which seem to 

 me to lend some countenance to this view. Capt. John Smith, in 

 his ' Map of Virginia,' p. 23 (Arber's reprint, p. 68), telling how 

 the Indians make their bows and arrows, says, " His arrow-head 

 he quickly maketh with a little bone, which he ever weareth at his 

 bracer, of any splint of stone or glass in the form of a heart." 

 Strachey, in his ' Historic of Travaile into Virginia ' (Hakluyt 

 Society edition, p. 106), employing precisely the same language,, 

 adds, " and which bracer is commonly of some beast's skin ; either 

 of the wolf, badger, or black fox." In the 'General History of Vir- 

 ginia,' which comprises a reprint, with additions, of ' The Map of 

 Virginia,' Third Book, p. 15 (Arber's reprint, p. 397), in an account 

 of the capture of Smith, we are informed that the Indians had 

 " every one his quiver of arrows, and at his back a club ; on his arm 

 a fox or an otter's skin, or some such matter, for his vambrace." 



Winslow, in ' Good Newes from New England ' (Young's edition,- 

 p. 365), says, " The men wear also, when they go abroad in cold 

 weather, an otter or fox skin on their right arm, but only their 

 bracer on the left." 



As 'bracer,' or 'vambrace,' was the common term employed 

 by old English writers to designate armor worn upon the fore-arm, 

 we are authorized to infer from these statements that the Indians- 

 were accustomed to make use of the skin of some animal for a 

 similar purpose. It would seem to be a very easy transition from 

 a piece of leather to a thin, flat tablet of stone, pierced near the 

 centre usually with two holes, which could readily be adjusted, to- 

 the wrist as a guard. 



