Evenings at the Microscope: Or, Researches among the Minuter Organs and Forms of Animal Life

by Philip Henry Gosse

Overview

English zoologist Philip Henry Gosse (1810–88) spent several years studying the biodiversity of habitats in North America and the Caribbean. His Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica (1851) is reissued in this series. When he settled on the Devonshire coast, the area proved equally rich for research. In this 1859 publication, the deeply religious Gosse considers the 'Divine mechanics' of animal body parts and microorganisms seen through the lens of a microscope. He leads the reader through a selection of specimens ranging from a hog's bristle to the shoe-like protist Paramecium. Gosse's writing style, enlivened with anecdotes and literary references, earned him considerable appreciation among Victorian audiences. His entertaining text is complemented by more than 100 illustrations which showcase his draughtsmanship. While the work shares its year of publication with Darwin's groundbreaking Origin of Species, Gosse's religious views firmly shaped his interpretation of the specimens on show.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781108081269
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	07/02/2015
Series:	Cambridge Library Collection - Zoology
Pages:	524
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.18(d)

Read an Excerpt

served, that, about a thousand years ago, a Danish robber had violated this church, and, having been taken, had been condemned to be flayed, and his skin nailed to the church- door, as a terror to evil-doers. The action of the weather and other causes had long ago removed all traces of the stretched and dried skin, except that, from under the edges of the broad-headed nails with which the door was studded, fragments still peeped out. It was one of those atoms, obtained by drawing one of the old nails, that was now subjected to microscopical scrutiny; and it was interesting to find that the wonder-showing tube could confirm the tradition with the utmost certainty ; not only in the general fact, that it was really the skin of man, but in the special fact of the race to which that man belonged, viz., one with fair complexion and light hair, such as the Danes are well known to possess. It is evident from this anecdote that the human hair presents characters which are so indelible that centuries of exposure do not avail to obliterate them, and which readily distinguish it from the hair of any other creature. Let us then begin our | evening's entertainment by an examination of a human hair, and a comparison of it with that which belongs to various animals. Here, then, is a hair from my own head. I cut off about half-an-inch of its length, and, laying it between two plates of glass, put it upon the stage of the microscope. I now apply a power of 600 diameters; that is, the apparent increase of thickness is the same as if six hundred of these hairs were placed side by side. Now, with this eye-piece micrometer, we will first of all measure its diameter. You see, crossing the bright circularfield of As Hair, view, a. semi-pellucid cylindrical object; that is the hair. You see also a ...

Table of Contents

Preface; 1. Hairs, feathers, and scales; 2. Blood; 3. Mollusca; 4. Sea-mats and shelly corallines; 5. Insects: wings and their appendages; 6. Insects: their breathing organs; 7. Insects: their feet; 8. Insects: stings and ovipositors; 9. Insects: their mouths; 10. Insects: their eyes and ears; 11. Crabs and shrimps; 12. Barnacles; 13. Spiders and mites; 14. Wheel-bearers; 15. Worms; 16. Sea-urchins and sea-cucumbers; 17. Jelly-fishes; 18. Zoophytes; 19. Sea-anenomes: their weapons; 20. Protozoa and sponges; 21 Infusoria; Index.