Essays on the Microscope: Containing a Practical Description of the Most Improved Microscopes, a General History of Insects, etc., etc.Adams, George
Science
Essays on the Microscope: Containing a Practical Description of the Most Improved Microscopes, a General History of Insects, etc., etc.
Adams, George
Insects -- Early works to 1800; Microscopy -- Early works to 1800
Mr. Jones has found that a large square glass, from twelve to sixteen
inches in the side, rough ground on one of its surfaces, exhibits the
objects the best of any other contrivance; answers tolerably well for
opake objects, and gives the artist the means of tracing their figure
most correctly on its surface. Such sort of objects he fixes upon slips
of glass for that purpose, or applies them to a pair of nippers shewn at
_b_, sent with the microscope. A concave silver speculum screws on at
_c_, before the magnifiers, which reflects upon the objects the light
that issues from the lamp through the body of the microscope. The least
dimensions of the lanthorn are about ten inches square, and fourteen
inches high.
This microscope and lanthorn, when made as a separate apparatus from the
lucernal, is called the LANTHORN MICROSCOPE. Its effect is considerably
short of what is produced by the solar microscope, and not equal to what
is much wished for in this manner of magnifying minute objects; see
note, page 77.
Partly from the improvements just described, Mr. Jones is now
constructing a lucernal microscope that he conceives will be the most
simple and perfect yet made. It could not be completed in time to be
described in this work; but its improvement and advantages will be quite
evident to any reader who has attended to the description which I have
just given.
DESCRIPTION OF CUFF’S DOUBLE-CONSTRUCTED MICROSCOPE, REPRESENTED AT Fig.
1. Plate VII. A.[32]
[32] The compound or double microscope is in more general use than any
other sort. Besides its being less expensive than the lucernal or
complete solar, it is found commodious and portable in the observer’s
apartment, when only a confined degree of microscopical pursuit is
intended, and that chiefly for a few hours amusement; it may be used
both by day and night. In the most improved of this kind the objects
appear magnified in a field of view from about 12 to 15 inches in
diameter. It is better adapted to transparent than to opake objects,
yet the latter may often be viewed to great advantage by the
assistance of the sun’s rays or the light of a candle condensed on
them. The intelligent reader, by attending to the accounts of the
different microscopes described in this work, will be enabled to
select that best adapted to the kind of objects he wishes to explore,
and the manner in which he is desirous of having them exhibited. EDIT.
This instrument was first described by Mr. Baker, and recommended by
him. It was also described by my father in the fourth edition of his
Micrographia Illustrata, page xix.
A B C represents the body of this microscope; it contains an eye-glass
at A, a large lens at B, and a magnifier which is screwed on at C, one
of which is represented at Q.
The body of the microscope is supported by the arm D E, from which it
may be removed at pleasure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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