THE MICROSCOPE.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 198, 1 August 1884, Page 2

THE MICROSCOPE.

The following is a resume of the Rev. J. E. Fox’s lecture delivered under- the auspices of the Gisborne Institute on Wednesday evening. In introducing his subject the rev. gentleman said the lecture was suggested on hearing the Ven. Archdeacon Williams’ essay on Outdoor Recreations. It is true that the microscope was best studied at home. We may indeed carry a portable one, or indeed a good lens, but the principal study must be indoors. At the same time the search for microscopic objects is an outdoor pursuit. It may carry us to mountain tops or along the sea beach. It will give us amusement during many an evening hour which my otherwise drag wearily along. My own position with regard to it is that of a camp follower of the army of science—not conquering new realms, but gathering the soldiers spoils from them and picking up the scraps they have thrown aside. This paper is therefore intended for novices. Well, let us suppose our miscrosoope in our hands—where shall wo begin. It is well to know beforehand what to look for. If we could be suddenly transported to the moon, or any of the planets how eagerly we should look around. The microscope reveals to us a world of life, of which we were quite unconscious. Let us go into the garden and take a thimbleful of water from the pond, and a little dued-weed, and as we come back pluck a leaf from some tree. Put a stem of duck-weed and a drop of water on your slide and look. What is this ? The waler teems with living creatures. They are rushing about at such a rate that you can hardly examine them. There is one quiet for a minute anchoring himself by his one foot. What a curious body he has. And look at his head. Is that a wheel going round. No, but it looks like one, hence its name Rotifer, or wheel-bearer. This little creature can do quite well without his dinner if necessary. You may dry up the water and keep him in suspended animation for months. I believe you may even bake him in an oven and he will not care. He is made so as to live on when the summer heat dries up the pools. Hullo I he is gone. Let us look at something else. What are those wonderful little creatures anchored to the duckweed by fairy lines ? Little glass bells, with their rims set with cilia like the rotifer. How they rise and fall. Tap the glass. Ah I they are gone. No, there they are once more. Now we see they had sprung back by coiling up their tiny cables. There is one that is dividing itself into two. This is a very common thing in our new world. One of the little bells has got loose from its stem. How rapidly it swims off. It will settle down by and bye and turn into an elegant trumpetshaped vase, and go through all sorts of strange changes. The lecturer pointed out many other beautiful things, and said, as there was a world beneath us of which we were unconscious, should we not be more ready to credit that there is a world of living beings above us of which we can see so little. Take a leaf from any tree and scrape off the upper skin and the lower (for it is built in three stories), and with your new eyes look at each part. They are built up of an immense number of vegetable bricks and stones so to speak, and the bit of leaf looks something like a honeycomb, only the cells are rounded, not octagonal. A skilled person can tell at once what the piece of leaf was taken from, be it ever so minute. The best object for this study is a hair on the stem of a common English fern. The cells and cell walls are very clearly marked. Here we face a great mystery—that of the origin of life. These cells are the ultimate units of which every living thing is built. If you want to seethe building going on, take a little of the green slimy water so common in stagnant pools. What a surprise. You see a number of glass rods, beautifully marked. Here we have the unit of creation—the mode and beginning of all life. Go out now into the garden and catch a butterfly or moth. Just touch it with your finger. You will have a little dust adhering to your finger. Next touch with another finger the stamen of a lily, you will have some more dust. To the naked eye there is little difference, but under the microscope the difference is very marked. Take a number of hairs from different animals, divide them into atoms and then mix them all up together. With the aid of the microscope you can separate them all again without any trouble. Take a drop of blood and examine it. You will see there are myriads of little red discs floating in a colorless fluid, and by the size and shape of these discs you can distinguish one sort of blood from another. Mr. Gorse tells us a story of a microscopist who undertook to distinguish human skin. AJ fragment was sent him which looked as if it had been torn off an old trunk. The professor found some hairs on it which he recognised as human, and such as had belonged to a person of fair complexion. He then learned the fragment had been taken from the door of an old church in Yorkshire, in the neighborhood of which a tradition is preserved, that about 1000 years ago a Danish robber (and therefore a man of fair complexion) violated this church, and, as a punishment, was skinned and his hide nailed to the door as a terror to evil-doers. The fragment sent for examination was taken from under the head of one of the nails with which the skin was attached to the door. You have seen the black mud in wet roads and elsewhere. Magnify it you will see a field of glassy canes growing in numbers together. The canes suddenly bend of themselves and spring apart. A plant it is—yet it has an automatic movement like an animal. You will think with more respect of the black slime in future. Take a mouldy crust and look at a tiny portion of the mould. You see a number of little plants like mushrooms. Squeeze them and you are amazed at the multitude of seeds. The air is full of these seeds ready to take root as soon as they find a suitable habitat. The microscope gratifies our sense of the beautiful, and awakes our wonder. I hope what has been said will lead some to enter the treasury of beauty and help themselves. (Applause.) Mr. Fox apologised for the paucity of illustrations, but said the non-arrival of his microscope from England was the cause.

Dr. Pollen said there were three or four microscopes in the town, the use of which he thought could be obtained, if Mr. Fox would continue the lecture at a future date. He expressed the pleasure he had derived in listenino to the lecture. The microscope was the right hand of the science of pathology, and but for its aid microscopic germs of any sort could hardly have been discovered. An eminent physician in Vienna had, after fourteen years study, just discovered that consumption was a germinal disease. The

theory was very generally accepted as correct, and as a consequence a new course of treatment had been introduced. It was pretty well known that acids destroyed almost any form of life, and by the anilation of acids, in the earlier stages, it was believed that a cure for consumption could be effected. I’he microscope had been invaluable in discovering germs in zymotic diseases, such as scarlet fever. Typhoid had also been proved to be a germinal disease. He did not know how without its aid pathology could ever have made any headway. He thought a great drawback to amateurs in the study of the microscope was the nomenclature of minute objects. It appeared the smaller the object was the larger i:s ; of English names would bo an assistance to amateurs. (Applause.) With reference to blood, exp its were somewhat charry of swearing. They would often go so far as to say blood was that of mammalia or otherwise, but he did not think they could positively distinguish human blood from that of other animals. Captain Porter said the lecture had greatly increased his interest in the subject. It would be a good idea for the Institute to secure a microscope of their own. The Rev. Mr. Fox, in responding to a vote of thanks, pointed out how a crime had been detected by examining grains of sand, and thereby locating the crime. Blood discs were of very different shapes and sizes, and he thought human blood could easily be delected when placed side by side with other kinds, although perhaps it might be difficult to

decide otherwise. The sand out of a piece of new sponge formed a wonderful theme for study when brought under the microscope, containing as it did minute shells of a vast ' multitude of shapes and beautifully marked, i He would bs happy to continue the lecture at some future time.