Lower Epidermis of Leaf Showing the Stomata and Chlorophyll Cells [Fig. 1]-
Microscopic Investigation of the Tea Leaf
Illustrated by T. Taylor
Printed by Sackett & Wilhelms Lith Co., New York
First Report of the Secretary of Agriculture- 1889
Washington: Government Printing Office, 1889
Gould Library Government Documents
The books on display here, all from the collections of Gould Library, reveal the beauty and order of hidden worlds. In these volumes, microscopic images are deployed for a variety of reasons: Sometimes their purpose is purely practical (to certify the purity of a sample of tea, or to facilitate the identification of diseased blood). In other cases, as in Felice Frankel’s close-up view of Velcro, their job is as much to inspire curiosity and wonder as it is to illustrate a scientific phenomena.
C. 10 Velcro: the hook side
C. 10 Velcro: the hook side
Dee Breger
Journeys in Microspace: the Art of the Scanning Electron Microscope
New York: Columbia University Press, 1995
Gould Library Collections
“Perhaps the micrographs in this book will affirm that in the routine technical pursuits of science we often find an unexpected elegance.”
This book resulted from Dee Breger’s fascination with the Scanning Electron Microscope and the images she viewed through its lens. As a scientist, Breger appreciated both the beauty and the magnificence of her tiny subjects and wished to share SEM images with an audience that might otherwise never see the world of science in such a spectacular way. In this image velcro is transformed from a mundane material into a
provocative organism.
1. p. 13