"In the southern hemisphere, or in any tropical country where at noon the sun is due north, the rule will give the north point instead of the south."
MICROGRAPHY OR MINUTE WRITING AND MICROPHOTOGRAPHY
inute works of art have always excited the curiosity and commanded the admiration of the average man. Consequently Cicero thought it worth while to record that the entire Iliad of Homer had been written upon parchment in characters so fine that the copy could be enclosed in a nutshell. This has always been regarded as a marvelous feat.
There is in the French Cabinet of Medals a seal, said to have belonged to Michael Angelo, the fabrication of which must date from a very remote epoch, and upon which fifteen figures have been engraved in a circular space of fourteen millimeters (.55 inch) in diameter. These figures cannot be distinguished by the naked eye.
The Ten Commandments have been engraved in characters so fine that they could be stamped upon one side of a nickle five-cent piece, and on several occasions the Lord's Prayer has been engraved on one side of a gold dollar, the diameter of which is six-tenths of an inch. I have also seen it written with a pen within a circle which measured four-tenths of an inch in diameter.
In the Harleian manuscript, 530, there is an account of a "rare piece of work, brought to pass by Peter Bales, an Englishman, and a clerk of the chancery." D'Israeli tells us that it was "The whole Bible in an English walnut, no bigger than a hen's egg. The nut holdeth the book: there are as many leaves in his little book as in the great Bible, and he hath written as much in one of his little leaves as a great leaf of the Bible."
By most people, such achievements are considered marvels of skill, and the newspaper accounts of them which are published always attract special attention. And it must be acknowledged that such work requires good eyes, steady nerves, and very delicate control of the muscles. But with ordinary writing materials there are certain mechanical limitations which must prevent even the most skilful from going very far in this direction. These limitations are imposed by the fiber or grain of the paper and the construction of the ordinary pen, neither of which can be carried beyond a certain very moderate degree of fineness. Of course, the paper that is chosen will be selected on account of its hard, even-grained surface, and the pen will be chosen on account of the quality of its material and its shape, and the point is always carefully dressed on a whetstone so as to have both halves of the nib equal in strength and length, and the ends smooth and delicate. When due preparation has been made, and when the eyes and nerves of the writer are in good condition, the smallness of the distinctly readable letters that may be produced is wonderful. And in this connection it is an interesting fact that in many mechanical operations, writing included, the hand is far more delicate than the eye. That which the unaided eye can see to write, the unaided eye can see to read, but the hand, without the assistance or guidance of the eye, can produce writing so minute that the best eyes cannot see to read it, and yet, when viewed under a microscope, it is found to compare favorably with the best writing of ordinary size. And those who are conversant with the more delicate operations of practical mechanics, know that this is no exceptional case. The only aid given by the eye in the case of such minute writing is the arrangement of the lines, otherwise the writing could be done as well with the eyes shut as open.