ABSTRACT

A four-year-old girl is looking at a collection of shells, rocks and pebbles, untidily arranged on a table with an assortment of magnifiers of different shapes and sizes. She selects one large spiral shell and examines it closely, first with the naked eye and then with some of the magnifiers. She uses the hand lenses, large and small, moving them to and fro to get the best magnification. She bends down and puts her face right up against the lens, as if she is trying to work out the best distance between her eyes, the lens and the shell. Then she puts the shell down on the table, placing it under a magnifying glass mounted on a tripod; she leans over the tripod, and looks intently at the shell, moving her head up and down, until she seems to be satisfied she has seen all there is to see. She picks up the shell again and holds it to each ear in turn. Then she puts the shell back on the table, under the tripod, and bends over it once more, laying her ear close to the lens, as if she were listening to the shell, through the magnifying glass.