CHAPTER VII 



THE MICROSCOPE AS A RECREATION 



Science owes more to the discoveries made with the microscope 

 than to those made with any other instrument, but it is not 

 always appreciated what a fund of enjoyment is available to all 

 by making use of the addition to one's eyesight that the microscope 

 affords. The reader may have met an enthusiast who devotes 

 hours at a time to gazing down the tube of this instrument, and 

 have wondered what could so engross his attention. If questioned, 

 such an enthusiast might have explained that in the stagnant 

 ponds and ditches he had discovered numbers of curious and 

 amazing animals — creatures that had been unobserved for thou- 

 sands of years because they were small — creatures more varied 

 than the inmates of the Zoological Gardens, and of types of 

 astonishing originality and beauty. 



A visit to a weedy pond with a few bottles, the collection of 

 some of the water, weed, and mud, and their examination undef 

 the microscope will be convincing proof that the enthusiast was 

 correct. 



For some time an observer may be content to watch these 

 new-found animalcula and wonder at their curious diversity of 

 appearance, but the time will probably arrive when he will 

 desire to know more of their habits ; he will then discover that 

 during the last sixty or seventy years books have been written 

 about them. The first glance at such books may fiU. him with 

 dismay ; they are filled with long words and terrible names, and 

 it would almost appear that a new language has been evolved 

 to describe these minute creatures. 



Further examination, however, will show that the terminology 

 is but a thin veneer and that a method is discernible in the 

 apparent madness of these writers. They state that they have 

 discovered a history of existence, which they call development, 

 which shows how in the ages that have gone, great and complex 

 animals — perhaps man himself — have grown from simple and 

 minute beginnings. The more enterprising of these simple forms 

 have, they say, from time to time, altered their characteristics 

 and grown through gradual stages to more complex forms. Some 

 have advanced while others have remained in their original con- 



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