MEMOIR OF SWAMMERDAM. 
55 
all his predecessors in the same field of labour ; and 
this feeling we are in some measure enabled to gra- 
tify by the care of his biographer, Boerhaave, whose 
account is so satisfactory, that we cannot do better 
than nearly translate his own words. For the dis- 
section of very minute objects, he had a small brass 
table, ingeniously constructed by an artist of Amster- 
dam, to which were attached two moveable brass 
arms. The upper part of these arms was so planned 
as to admit of a vertical motion, so that the operator 
could adjust their height to answer his purposes ; one 
of them was designed to hold the object under exa- 
mination, the other, the glasses through which it was 
to be viewed. These glasses were, of course, in great 
variety, as well as the manner in which they were 
fitted up into microscopes, and it was always a matter 
of great anxiety with Swammerdam to obtain them 
of the best possible substance and workmanship. It 
was his practice first to view the object under exami- 
nation through a glass of comparatively small power, 
and to apply stronger ones gradually as he was be- 
coming more familiar with its forms and appearance, 
a practice by which every observation was made 
subservient to the next, and the deceptive tendencies 
of different lights in a great measure guarded against. 
His skill and patience in constructing cutting instru- 
ments were remarkable, and it is, in a great degree, 
to their ingenious forms, and extreme delicacy, that 
much of his success is to be ascribed. His scissors 
were remarkably fine and sharp-pointed, and this 
was a favourite instrument with him, as he found it 
