Micrographia: Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries Thereupon — John Shaqi
Micrographia: Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries ThereuponHooke, Robert
History
Micrographia: Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries Thereupon
Hooke, Robert
Magnifying glasses -- Early works to 1800; Microscopy -- Early works to 1800; Natural history -- Pre-Linnean works
in such an Angle as is requisite to the forming of such a Sphere as the
Glass is design’d to be of; the geometrical ground of which being
sufficiently plain, though not heeded before, I shall, for brevities
sake, pass over. This last _Mandril_ to be made (by means of the
former, or some other Wheel) to run round very swift also, by which two
cross motions the Glass cannot chuse (if care be us’d) but be wrought
into a most exactly spherical Surface.
But because we are certain, from the _Laws of refraction_ (which I I have
experimentally found to be so, by an Instrument I shall presently describe)
that _the lines of the angles of Incidence are proportionate to the lines
of the angles of Refraction_, therefore if Glasses could be made of those
kind of Figures, or some other, such as the most incomparable _Des Cartes_
has invented, and demonstrated in his Philosophical and Mathematical Works,
we might hope for a much greater perfection of Opticks then can be
rationally expected from spherical ones; for though, _cæteris paribus_, we
find, that the larger the _Telescope_ Object Glasses are, and the shorter
those of the _Microscope_, the better they magnifie, yet both of them,
beside such determinate dimensions, are by certain inconveniences rendred
unuseful; for it will be exceeding _difficult_ to make and _manage_ a Tube
above an _hundred foot long_, and it will be as difficult to _inlighten_ an
Object less then an hundred part of an inch distant from the Object Glass.
I have not as yet made any attempts of that kind, though I know two or
three wayes, which, as far as I have yet considered, seem very probable,
and may invite me to make a tryal as soon as I have an opportunity, of
which I may hereafter perhaps acquaint the world. In the Interim, I shall
describe the Instrument I even now mention’d, by which the _refraction_ of
all kinds of Liquors may be most exactly measur’d, thereby to give the
curious an opportunity of making what further tryals of that kind they
shall think requisite to any of their intended tryals; and to let them see
that the laws of Refraction are not only notional.
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