

ue 4 d 
AMERICAN NATURALIST. 
Vol. III. CJANUARY, 1870.— No. 11. 
coc G3 (eO em» 
SHAVINGS EXAMINED MICROSCOPICALLY. 
BY PROF. A. M. EDWARDS. 

Tue examination of any organic tissue, be it animal or 
vegetable, by means of the modern achromatic microscope, 
reveals such a world of beauty, and so much material for 
wonder, that the novice in such pastime is for a while very 
much puzzled what to observe, and what to leave unseen. 
Although life, that mysterious manifestation of Divine will, 
appears to be most strikingly made manifest in animal exist- 
enees, yet the grass of the field and wood of the oak tree 
present materials attractive to him who will patiently read 
aright the lessons they inculcate. It is my intention, in the 
present article, to point out to the young student of nature a 
path that may be traversed with great profit and lasting 
pleasure. I have taken as my shbject the structure of wood, 
the hard tissue of plants, as exhibited in the shaving which 
the carpenter peels off with his jack-plane. Let the Gabero 
microscopist collect a number of such, the thinner the 
better, and I warrant he will have enough to do when look- 
ing at them through the long winter’s evenings. 
All plants, it pee been disiorered: great and small, the 
monarch of the woodland and the violet of the plain; aye, 
all, with the exception, perhaps, of those doubtful little 

- Entered to Act of in the year 1869, by the PEABODY ACADEMY OF 
SCIENCE, in the C. Office of the Dis Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
AMER. NA ; VOL. IH. 71 (561) 
