EETIEWS. 
73 
now conclude oiir notice bj recommending- Rain ” to everyone who is 
interested in the now popular study of meteorology ; they will find it a 
clear, straightforward guide to the accurate pursuit of weather-science. 
WORK which is now in its sixth edition, and which the preface tells us 
has enjoyed a circulation of 50,000 copies, is really, by those very 
circumstances, carried beyond the province of the reviewer. It is only 
necessary, in noticing such a work, to say what features distinguish the 
present from the preceding issue. Mr. Hogg, whose position as Secretary to 
the Royal Microscopical Society, gives him no mean authority as a writer on 
microscopical subjects, has, in the volume before us, done his utmost to give 
a complete history of all recent progress in the invention and improvement 
of microscopic apparatus. There is, however, one exception to this 
statement, and we think, in common justice to his readers, Mr. Hogg is 
bound to afford an explanation of it. In the chapters devoted to an 
account of the microscopes of English manufacture, no mention whatever 
is made of the excellent and handsome instruments of Messrs. Beck and 
Beck. This omission is a serious one — it deprives the reader of information 
which in fairness he is entitled to receive, and it does a grievous wrong to 
one of our most eminent and respected firms. We have no desire to give 
Messrs. Beck any particular prominence but we consider that the highest 
credit is due to them for their early efforts to popularise microscopic pursuits ; 
and we trust, therefore, that, in his next edition, our author will not only 
avoid the omission in his present treatise, but will offer a fair excuse for 
the step he has, or rather has not, taken. Mr. Hogg’s book is divided into 
two sections ; the first dealing exclusively with the microscope, in its mani- 
fold shape and form, and with the several contrivances which are employed 
as accessories in preparing, mounting, and illumining objects j and the second 
treating of the objects which afford an interesting study to the amateur. 
Among the novelties in the first portion of the work, we notice a very ela- 
borate account of the Browning micro-spectroscope ; an instrument to which 
attention has recently been called by the researches upon cholera conducted 
with it by Dr. Thudicum, and made public in the Ninth Report of the 
Medical Officer to the Privy Council. Here, en 2 ^cissant, we may remark 
that Mr. Hogg quotes ad lihitum from Mr. Sorby’s article in this Review,! 
without giving us the merit which is due to us ; an omission, however, 
which we have no doubt was purely accidental. The second division 
of Mr. Hogg’s volume is really a treatise on microscopic biology, since it 
embraces detailed descriptions of nearly all the living structures whose 
characters are best observed with the aid of the microscope. There are 
in this, however, two points on which we must join issue with the 
* The Microscope : its History, Construction, and Application.’ By Jabez 
Hogg, F.L.S., F.R.M.S., Secretary to the Royal Microscopical Society. Sixth 
edition. London : Routledge. 1867. 
THE MICROSCOPE.* 
t P.S.R., January 1866. 
