INTRODUCTION OF THE MICROSCOPE 71 
worker, and in finishing his treatise on bees (1673) he broke 
himself down. 
“Tt was an undertaking too great for the strongest con- 
stitution to be continually employed by day in making obser- 
vations and almost as constantly engaged by night in record- 
ing them by drawings and suitable explanations. This being 
summer work, his daily labors began at six in the morning, 
when the sun afforded him light enough to enable him to 
survey such minute objects; and from that time till twelve 
he continued without interruption, all the while exposed in 
the open air to the scorching heat of the sun, bareheaded, 
for fear of interrupting the light, and his head in a manner 
dissolving into sweat under the irresistible ardors of that 
powerful luminary. And if he desisted at noon, it was only 
because the strength of his eyes was too much weakened by 
the extraordinary efflux of light and the use of microscopes 
to continue any longer upon such small objects. 
“This fatigue our author submitted to for a whole month 
together, without any interruption, merely to examine, de- 
scribe, and represent the intestines of becs, besides many 
months more bestowed upon the other parts; during which 
time he spent whole days in making observations, as long as 
there was sufficient light to make any, and whole nights in 
registering his observations, till at last he brought his treatise 
on bees to the wished-for perfection.” 
Method of Work.—‘ For dissecting very minute objects, he 
had a brass table made on purpose by that ingenious artist, 
Samuel Musschenbroek. To this table were fastened two 
brass arms, movable at pleasure to any part of it, and the 
upper portion of these arms was likewise so contrived as to 
be susceptible of a very slow vertical motion, by which means 
the operator could readily alter their height as he saw most 
convenient to his purpose. The office of one of these arms 
was to hold the little corpuscles, and that of the other to apply 
