Enormous Labor Research Articles

Photo-Micrography with High Powers

PHOTOMICROGRAPHY has for some years past advanced but slowly, although its present status as a means of delineating minute structure is undoubtedly much higher than it has ever been. In optical appliances the improvements have been many, the most notable being the introduction of apochro-matic objectives. Their greater aperture and freedom from effects of the secondary spectrum have combined to render it possible to obtain good results with much greater ease than formerly. Some of the photomicrographs obtained, however in the early days of microscopy are even now hardly excelled, although they were produced at the cost of enormous labour, and required extraordinary skill on the part of the operator, with the apparatus then available. The production of satisfactory photographs, when the magnification exceeds one thousand diameters, has always been a matter of some difficulty. One of the greatest of these Has been the want of a source of illumination which should be of sufficient intensity without a considerable increase in the size of the illluminating surface. Various attempts have been made to adapt the oxy-hydrogen light for the purpose; but there always remains the objection, that however small the incandescent portion of the lime may be, it does not emit light of equal intensity over the whole of its surface. This can at once be seen if an image of the lime be projected on to a screen. The result is uneven illumination, a defect so often seen in high-power photographs, when the image of the radiant is projected by the achromatic condenser across the object, or what is known as “critical illumination.”

An Attempt to measure the Extra Risk arising from a Consumptive Family History when the Life proposed for Assurance is physically Sound and Healthy

It has been said that there is nothing so delusive as figures. especially in the form of statistics; and to a very large extent this is true. There is a real science of statistics which very few are acquainted with; and the consequence is that enormous labour is often expended on the collection of “Facts” which are not only useless but misleading. So-called “Facts” are often used as a crushing answer to some statement which may be perfectly true; and sometimes with effect, simply because the materials are not at hand to measure correctly the value of the statistics used. The most common offence is that of attempting to draw general conclusions from partial or imperfect observations. For instance, what is the value of the statistics of a coroner respecting the proportion of children murdered, out of the number which come under his observation, when the millions who do not come under his observation are not taken into consideration? Yet such statistics were gravely used to prove that two millions of people insured their children's lives with a view to murdering them, and that therefore such insurances ought to be suppressed. If any weight were to be attached to such statistics we might have it gravely stated, on the evidence of a coroner, that nearly every one died a sudden or violent death.

Chronological History of Plants

THIS is an extraordinary book, difficult alike to characterise and to review. It is a monument of enormous labour and erudition, but it is not easy to discover the plan upon which it is compiled, and it certainly does not fulfil the promise of its title. A “chronological history of plants ” would be an interesting and valuable work, if understood to mean a history of the ages and countries in which particular plants have been introduced from abroad, or those of home growth first adapted to the use of man. This, indeed, is the work which Dr. Pickering seems to have contemplated; it is not, however, the work which he has accomplished. Chronological History of Plants: Man's Record of his own Existence illustrated through their Names, Uses, and Companionship. By Charles Pickering (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co.; London: Trubner and Co., 1879.)

The Climatic Characteristics of Winds as Dependent on their Origin 1

OF the climatic characteristics of winds the most important are, primarily, their temperature, and, secondarily, their moisture. The general occurrence of certain characteristics, especially when more strongly marked, with particular directions of the wind, experience soon forces on our attention, and much labour has been bestowed, particularly by Dove, in grouping the winds simply according to their directions, and calculating the mean atmospheric pressure, temperature humidity, cloud, and rainfall, for each of the directions! Interesting and to some extent valuable results have been obtained from these inquiries; results, it must, however be added, far from being commensurate with the enormous labour expended in arriving at them. But in extending this line of research into such regions as Western Norway, Fatö, Iceland, Newfoundland, and the Azores, its unsatisfactoriness soon becomes evident; and the further consideration that the climatic qualities of a particular wind repeatedly differ widely from its general character, makes it evident that a climatic inquiry which groups the winds merely according to their direction does not proceed from a scientific basis.