Scientific American Supplement, No. 470, January 3, 1885Various
Science
Scientific American Supplement, No. 470, January 3, 1885
Various
Science -- Periodicals
But you will remember that only a minute drop of fluid containing them can
be examined at one time. This minute drop has to be covered with a minute
film of glass not more than the 1/200 of an inch thick. The highest lenses
are employed, working so near as almost to touch the delicate cover.
Clearly, then, the film of fluid would rapidly evaporate and cause the
destruction of the object studied. To prevent this an arrangement was
devised by which the lens and the covered fluid under examination were
used in an air-tight chamber, the air of which was kept in a saturated
condition; so that being, like a saturated sponge, unable to take in any
more, it left the film of fluid unaffected. But to make the work efficient
I soon found that there must be a second observer. Observation by leaps
was of no avail. To be accurate it must be unbroken. There must be no gap
in a chain of demonstration. A thousand mishaps would occur in trying to
follow a single organism through all the changes of successive hours to
the end. But, however many failures, it was evident, we must begin on
another form at the earliest point again, and follow it to the close. I
saw soon that every other method would have been merely empirical, a mere
piecemeal of imagination and fact. When one observer's ability to continue
a long observation was exhausted, there must be another at hand to take up
the thread and continue it; and thus to the end. I was fortunate indeed at
this time in securing the ready and enthusiastic aid of Dr. J.J. Drysdale,
of Liverpool, who practically lived with me for the purpose, and went side
by side with me to the work. We admitted nothing which we had not both
seen, and we succeeded each other consecutively, whenever needful, in
following to the end the complete life-histories of six of these
remarkable forms.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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