In this article, then-all too sketchy and condensed, as I am painfully aware-I have attempted to illustrate the following convictions: First, that those who stand for the absolute inerrancy of Scripture (a doctrine really due to the Protestant scholastics of the Post-Reformation age, as the history of the doctrine of Inspiration clearly shows), are advocating an unimportant cause, and second, that the most exalted views of the supremacy of Scripture do not require for their support any such theory of absolute inerrancy. If theoretical inerrancy is unproven, I believe practical inerrancy made out.

II. THE MICROSCOPE-ITS STRUCTURE AND ITS TEACH

INGS.

BY PROFESSOR R. OGDEN DOREMUS, M.D., LL.D., NEW YORK CITY.

THE eye is a microscope. It is also a telescope.

This marvellous micro-telescopic instrument, the "window of the soul," is located in the human face in the most honorable position, above all the other organs of sense; eminently suited for its superior functions.

Protected from injury by the projecting forehead, and from excessive light by eyebrow and eyelash; its windows are washed and kept bright by an incessant flow from the lachrymal glands, carried by a quick movement of the lid, so as not to interrupt continuous vision. Pillowed on soft cushions of fat, the globe is readily moved by appropriate muscles, without friction, any desired direction.

in

How surprisingly ingenious its mysteries! Aqueous and semi-fluid light-refracting media; its crystalline lens alterable in curvature and position, by involuntary agents, to enable it to focalize rays from near or distant objects on the photographic surface; the iris, with its circular opening, in full sympathy with the other adjusting powers, contracting or relaxing its curtain to admit less or more light. No Kodak can as quickly change its sensitive film of complex chemicals as the retina of the eye. Picture follows picture in ceaseless succession, and each imprint is conveyed with electric speed by living conductors to the impressionable brain.

The microscopic power of the eye may be enhanced by means of a pinhole in a card, placed all but in contact with the cornea, so as to cut off too divergent rays of light. The nearer objects are brought to this wonderful organ the larger they appear, until within a few inches of the eye. Vision becomes indistinct at closer approach, because the lenses cannot converge all the rays to a focal point. If these divergent rays are excluded, as by the opaque card, though we thus diminish the light, the few more nearly parallel rays enable us to see objects close to the eye, faintly illuminated, but apparently much enlarged. Thus in a drop of stagnant water, held

so that it almost touches this minute opening, any of the larger animalculæ existing there can be seen.*

Magnifying glasses must have been employed by the ancient Egyptian, Grecian, and Roman engravers of precious stones in producing the exquisitely detailed intaglios and relievos seen in museums of art. The Scriptures do not inform us whether Methuselah in his old age, culminating at his nine hundred and sixty-ninth year, wore spectacles; or whether Abraham, David, or Solomon in all his glory had glasses for his senile eyes. We learn, however, from profane history that eighteen hundred years ago the Emperor Nero wore a monocle. Some authorities assert that it was made of a large ruby; others, of a carbuncle, and again, of an emeraude (emerald ?). It was most probably of rock-diamond, or quartz. As the emperor was near-sighted, it must have been concave. With it," it is said, "he could distinctly see the people as he rode in his chariot."

The honor of devising the modern microscope is attributed to Zacharias Jansen, Cornelius Drebbel, of Holland, and Fontana, of Italy.

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The Tuscan philosopher who first descried the sunlit mountain-tops and shadowed valleys of the cloudless moon, the only celestial orb that always presents to us the same face, though apparently changing in features, because of the changing solar rays; who first saw the satellites of the greatest planet, Jupiter, revolving in obedience to its superior power, a representation of our planetary system in miniature; who first told us of the mysterious rings, or, as they appeared to him, " handles" of Saturn, and of his more numerous family of satellites; who, on observing the brilliant Venus in the western sky, at the setting of the sun, was the first to detect her crescent shape, like a new moon," the unanswerable demonstration of the truthfulness of the heliocentric system of Copernicus; who first resolved the via lactea, or "milky way," into a bed of myriads of glorious suns, was among the first to unveil to us the revelations of the microscope. Galileo says he "saw a flea, apparently the size of a sheep." No ordinary magnifying glass would have accomplished this astonishing result.

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Most fitting would it be that he who enlarged our knowledge of God's universe in all its grandeur should bequeath to us the instrument for redeeming this world from its insignificance, and demonstrating the minute perfection of the Almighty's handiwork.

In the compound microscope, the lenses placed at the end of the metallic tube nearest the object to be criticised, hence termed the objectives, are so minute for the highest powers that few brains and hands are skilled to give them the proper curvature. When rays of light pass through a lens,

A pinhole has been patented when made in a cardboard box, in which a sensitive photographic paper is placed. When the artist has selected the view he desires to secure, he uncovers the pinhole, and after a few seconds closes it. The picture is then developed in a darkened room. Here the pinhole has acted as a lens; but better than the lens, it focalizes at any distance. It is like the camera obscura of Porta.

+ Because the moon's centre of gravity does not correspond with its centre of figure.

besides being swayed from their path, they are separated into varied hues. The lens acts also the part of a prism. It disperses the white light into rainbow colors.

In the rigor of science the exact number and length of the vibrations in the air are known and measured which produce sounds that appeal to the ear, and cause its delicate membrane to vibrate in accordance therewith, and give to the brain the power to appreciate the sweet melodies and complex harmonies of Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn.

A beautiful alliance between sound and color is now claimed, the varied hues of light corresponding to the different tones of inusic. The undulations in the supposed ethereal medium have been accurately determined. The method for attaining this knowledge requires more space than this article permits; I therefore limit myself to the statement that the fewest vibrations appreciated as a musical note are 16 per second, and those which produce the highest tone 41,000 in a second; whereas, in regard to light, the red ray, which corresponds to the base note in music, has no less than 40,000 undulations in an inch, and the violet 70,000 in the same space. With these data, and the knowledge of the velocity of light, we can estimate the number of vibrations in a single second.

When we gaze at the red light from "fiery Mars," luminous rays speed over the intervening space at the rate of nearly 200,000 miles per second, and in each of the 12 thousand millions of inches 40,000 vibrations occur. In other words, during this brief period of time 480 millions of millions of wavelets break on the shore of the observer's eye! While the tide of violet light from Alpha Lyræ gives over 720 millions of millions of these infinitesimal ripplets for this keenly sensitive organ. Our conception of these multitudinous numbers may be aided when we are told that to count a single million of millions, one each second, would require more than 32,000 years! At this rate 15 millions of years would have to elapse before the red undulations could be enumerated, and 23 millions of years for the violet vibrations produced in one second of time !*

Professors Bunsen and Kirchhoff, of Heidelberg, by their researches with transparent prisms, applied to the sun's light, solved the enigma of the myriads of dark lines crossing the solar spectrum, first mapped by Fraunhofer, hence receiving his name. These mysterious writings in the sunbeam were as much more difficult to decipher than the hieroglyphs on Egyptian obelisks, as the works of the Almighty One surpass those of His creatures. From the patient investigations of these German savants came the startling announcement that vaporous metals existed in the photosphere of the sun, and that their interference in the undulations of the rays of light caused these dark lines. "The Fuel of the Sun" is the title of one of the scientific works on this subject.

*The ear has the extended range of eleven octaves, the eye only a single octave.

Many of the burning stars in the bright constellations that decorate the heavens have been analyzed and their constituent metals tabulated, for Huyghens and Lockyer have attached the spectroscope to the telescope. As Alexander longed for other worlds to conquer, so the modern scientist, not satisfied with analytical researches on this earth, brings the light of the central sun and the vastly more distant glowing stars into his laboratory, and determines their constituent elements.

What a forcible illustration of the unity of God's plan in the construction of the universe, and of His guiding hand that conducts the rays of light unimpaired from distances so vast that centuries-yea, thousands-of years have elapsed since they started on their errand of instruction!

Even the long-discussed nebula have revealed to us their truly gaseous condition by the aid of prisms attached to the telescope. By the selective absorption which these vapors possess we are beginning to solve even the atomic structure of their ultimate particles.

These prisms, applied to the microscope, furnish means of research hitherto unknown.

When light is passed through certain liquids, then through the microspectroscope, parts of the brilliant spectrum are obscured or obliterated by absorbent bands. When their exact position is determined, the nature of the fluid through which the rays have passed is revealed. I have found that crude cotton-seed oil will cut off the half of the spectrum at the blue end. In a lawsuit involving a million of dollars this was one of the tests applied to decide whether cotton-seed oil had been used to adulterate lard oil.

Albumen and blood can be detected, even in trivial quantities, in the excretions of the human body by their characteristic absorbent bands-vitally important to the physician in diagnosing certain diseases.

The varied changes through which blood may pass can be recognized. The blood of those poisoned by carbonic oxide gas (CO), from burning coals, or from street gas, will give its characteristic dark bands even years after death. Blood stains on the clothing of the criminal and even scrapings from under his finger-nails have been detected by this method of research, and have furnished evidence essential to the conviction.

When light is reflected from polished surfaces at certain angles, vary ing with each object, or when it is transmitted through Iceland spar, it undergoes a change designated as polarization.

If the polarized ray passes through transparent media its path is sometimes modified; with some it is turned to the right, with others to the left. Thus, a solution of cane sugar is dextrogyrate. The degree of the deflection depends on the amount of sugar in the liquid. So accurate is this that for years our Government has employed the polariscope for analyzing the sugar imported to this country. The duty on the sugar brought to the city of New York alone yielded the United States Government, during the year 1890, nearly $70,000,000.

Nicol prisms are employed in the microscope. They consist of two sec

tions of Iceland spar cut in the plane which passes through the obtuse angles of the prism, and united with Canada balsam.

One of these Nicol prisms is placed in front of the objective. Through it the light, when passed, is polarized; hence it is called the polarizer. The second prism is inserted in the metallic tube of the microscope, between the objectives and the eye-glasses. By adjusting this polarizing device to the microscope optical analyses of rocks are made, determining their geological and mineralogical characteristics, and the structure of vegetable and animal fibres and tissues is more accurately defined. in examining different chemicals, both solids and liquids.

It is used

Many objects exhibit the gorgeous effects of colored polarization, the kaleidoscopic view changing on revolving either the polarizer or the analyzer, and giving the complementary colors at each quarter rotation.

Since colored rays act unequally on a sensitive photographic surface, better definition is obtained in micro-photography by the aid of polarized light. To complete the story of the construction of the microscope. At the other extremity of the metallic tube are placed the eye-glasses; they are many times larger than the objectives.

In the microscope these sets of lenses are always at the same distance from each other, with intervening diaphragms. Two eye-glasses of differing power are usually provided.

To employ the instrument in magnifying to varied extents, the lenses are made to approach or recede from the object. Since this cannot be accomplished with the telescope, the astronomer being limited to the earth, the distance of the objectives and eye-glasses are modified by appropriate mechanism, as in the opera-glass.

An improvement valued by many, though not employed for the greatest apparent enlargement, is the binocular microscope, where provision is made for using both eyes at the same time, as the astronomer Galileo devised and employed the binocular telescope.

We possess not only means for accurately measuring ordinary objects and distances, but the audacious astronomer determines the size and the remoteness of the moon, the sun, and the planets. He even tells us of vast chasms separating us from the "fixed stars" of our cluster, and of the most remote groups of systems, resorting to the speed of light as his modulus.

The microscopist, not daunted by minitude, devises the micrometer. By this instrument, which consists of exceedingly fine lines, drawn with rare skill on transparent glass, he indicates the number of diameters the small object seems to be enlarged. He passes from a few hundred diameters up to 80,000!

To the telescope we are indebted for our measurements of years, months, days, and hours. "For all kindreds and tribes and tongues of men, each upon their own meridian, from the Arctic Pole to the Equator, from the Equator to the Antarctic Pole, the eternal sun strikes twelve at noon, and