How to become an inventor

by Aaron A. Warford

THE MICROSCOPE.

At any time of the year or hour of the day there are few pursuits more interesting, and at the same time instructive, than the study of Nature by means of the microscope.

All of us must admire the more than awful grandeur of that universe whereof we form so infinitesimal a part, wherein the stars are scattered as the sand on the sea-shore, and every star a sun, the center of a system of orbs too distant for the eye of man to perceive. Looking at our nearest planet, and observing on her face vast mountain-chains, ravines into which the light of the sun can never penetrate, and volcanoes whose craters are so wide that they would take in the whole of New York, the whole of Philadelphia, and all the country between them, we can judge by analogy of the unseen wonders which must exist in the world beyond our ken.

But to him who can read Nature rightly, the microscope is a teacher as grand as its sister instrument, and the awful magnificence of Nature is as evident in a midge’s wing as in the more patent glories of the sun, moon, and stars. In the following pages we hope to put the readers of this book in the way to read their microscope rightly—possibly to make it—and to show that much can be done with small means when “there’s a will,” and to indicate to them that objects of no small interest can be found without stirring from the room in which we sit, or even from the table on which our microscope is placed.

Some of our readers may say, when they read the heading of this paper, that they should like a microscope very much, but that they have no money to buy it, and that their parents cannot afford one.

This is just the feeling which we used to have when a boy, for in those day microscopes were microscopes indeed, and you had your choice between a little instrument, with a series of brass cups, having glasses in them, which magnified slightly but defined clearly, or a great composition of brass and iron, looking like a rocket-tube, with an eye-piece at one end and a glass shot at the other. It was very costly, very imposing, and magnified very highly; but it strained the eyes painfully, had no defining capacities, and made all the objects look as if they were seen through a thick fog. Practically, therefore, the former was the only instrument that was available.

A still more useful instrument, however, was that which can always be obtained for a dollar or so, and which is now made wonderfully cheap and wonderfully good; we mean the double or treble pocket-lens. So we say, if you cannot afford a really good microscope, do not waste your money upon inferior and pretentious instruments, but get a sound pocket-lens.

It has a thousand advantages. It is portable, and is even more useful in the fields than in the house. It defines very clearly, and needs little trouble in manipulation. We need not say how difficult is the task of getting a complicated instrument to define properly, how impossible with a bad one. The object and the glass can be held in any light,—a matter of no small consideration when examining anything new, and trying to make out its structure. It is not easily put out of order, and if treated with the most ordinary care, will last for a lifetime.

You can push it under water, and it will magnify as well as in the air; and if you are wandering on the river-side, you can lie down on the bank, dip the upper part of your head in water, together with the glass, and watch carefully the sub-aquatic objects without removing them. The water will not hurt the eye in the least, though a non-swimmer may perhaps find a little difficulty in his first attempt. It makes a good burning-glass, should fire be needed, and no other means of procuring a spark be at hand. It can be used so as to show the principle of a camera obscura, and to illustrate the manner in which photographic portraits are taken. It can be made into an admirable dissecting microscope, and needs scarcely any practice in the manipulation. These are some of its advantages, and there are many others which need not be mentioned.

Even if you should be able to procure a good microscope, get a pocket-lens as well, for you will want them both, and we may say that the most practiced microscopists, and those who are possessors of the most elaborate instruments, are the very men who are the most certain to have a pocket-lens about them, and to use it most frequently. Practice well with the pocket-lens before you meddle with the compound microscope. You will waste no time, but will rapidly gain by it; for you will be learning the rudiments of a new science, and laying a solid foundation on which to build.