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66 workers in metals know so well how to produce in limitless profusion for the ruin of the scientific amateur."

If such statements should be made, they will be based upon facts.

There are, however, other facts which no biographer will dare to tell, and which, therefore, I must write for myself. The following experience is one of them. Whether to my credit or to my discredit, I shall tell the plain story and leave it, with all its improbability, to your fair judgment.

Already knowing my taste for the use of the microscope, you can understand the following letter without further introduction:

He inclosed a small rounded object wrapped in tissue-paper. It was light blue in color and a trifle smaller than a hazel-nut. The surface seemed, as the Professor hinted, to have been somewhat melted. It certainly had claims to be considered a curiosity.

That evening, after dinner, I took out my microscope, and after carefully cleaning the pebble, I examined the surface under a strong