can your integrator do this?
Figure 5. Zeiss Axiomat Pol
Peak Area and Height Readout
the SUPERGRATOR can! Most integrators are capable of giving you only peak area. The Supergrator provides you with a readout of peak area a n d / o r height—with corrections made for baseline on both. Readout of peak area and height is only one of the dozens of reasons the Supergrators should be in your lab. Why not call CSI today for a demonstration.
COLUMBIA SCIENTIFIC INDUSTRIES CORP. P.O. Box 9908, Austin, Texas 78766 (512) 258-5191, TWX 910-874-1364 Outside Texas call Toll Free (800)531-5003
everything back in the same condition and in the same place as the other cook, and neither cook is very happy as a result. Finally, there are the ultrasophisticated stands like the Zeiss Axiomat (Figure 5) and the Reichert UnivaR. The best analogy here is a wide-body jet aircraft vs. a Lear jet. You pay con siderably more money to fly a little higher, a little faster, and make a bet ter impression. You have better com munication and navigational equip ment, and you need a better pilot. Speaking more microscopically, these are superb stands with many out standing features. It is questionable whether they solve problems better or even faster, but they are flexible and permit a skilled microscopist to operate with a full range of light sources, optics, cameras, and optical accessories in a single instrument. In any case, the cost continues to mount with a final cost of $25 000-50 000, de pending on the choice of basic optics and accessories. Either of these elegant instruments can be classed as the Rolls Royce of the microscope world. They should be purchased for the full-time microsco pist able to appreciate and utilize the full capabilities of such instruments. Most microscopists, unfortunately, do not fall in this category, and it is a dis service to give them one. Most of us do better and faster work with a less complex and versatile instrument. There are microscopists who deserve and would benefit themselves and their company by having such an in strument. We have four, maybe five, such (microscopists) at McCrone As sociates; sometimes I'm sorry I'm not one of them. No one should assume from the few illustrations chosen for this article that Olympus, for example, makes only a simple polarizing microscope
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and Zeiss or Reichert make only very sophisticated instruments. Although there are more limited possibilities both at the very bottom of the price ladder (Olympus, Hacker, Unitron, and Kent) and at the very top (Re ichert and Zeiss), most manufacturers cover well the wide middle range. Leitz, for example, has an excellent small polarizing microscope for less than $2000, the SM Pol for about $4000, the Ortholux Pol at about $10 000, and the Orthoplan Pol for about $12 000. The cheapest Zeiss Pol 'scope is about $2200; the most expen sive about $48 000 (Axiomat). There is nearly an infinite number of combinations of stands and optics that function well as a polarizing mi croscope. The analogy with the sum maries of available automobiles and their various options is obvious. With microscopes, as with cars, one can buy subcompacts, compacts, standard se ries, sports types, high-performance models, and elegant, comfortable, quality-laden instruments of impres sive appearance and performance. Any one of these cars (microscopes) will get you where you are going. The lowerpriced microscopes (cars) are a good place to start—to learn what they can do, what you need or want to have in a new model, and how to utilize and appreciate improved performance. An excellent article on "How to Buy a Compound Microscope" by John G. Delly (7), although dated in terms of prices and most recent equipment, should be read by anyone in the mar ket for a microscope. We might end with one or two quotes—the first quoting the still apt observation of Dr. G. E. Blackman (2) of Dunkirk, N.Y., from a paper read nearly 100 years ago at the Buffalo meeting of the American Society of Microscopists: ". . . while it is doubt less true that an expert can do very fair work with instruments of only moderate quality, and the tyro cannot do first-class work with instruments even of the most superlative excel lence, it is also true that, other things being equal, the better the instrument the more reliable the results obtained, and that the best work cannot be done even by the most expert worker except with the best instruments." Finally, W. C. Geer and C.M.A. Stine (3) reported, ". . . the micro scope has come to be so valuable a part of research laboratory equipment that every research chemist should be well trained in its use." Literature Cited (1) John G. Delly, Am. Lab. (April 1969). (2) G. E. Blackman, J. R. Microsc. Soc, ρ 515 (1880). (3) W. C. Geer and C.M.A. Stine, Ind. Eng. Chem., News Ed., 7 (13), 1 (July 10, 1929).
