Microscope
date: label: date made
content: 19th century
notes: label: Description
content: Brass screw-barrel microscope of the sort that the English optician, James Wilson, introduced to the Royal Society in 1702. It has a detachable wooden handle; three condensing lenses, each in a brass holder; a brass bar holding six objectives; nine ivory sliders; and a forceps. A second brass tube with a large and almost flat condensing lens could be used to connect the microscope with a (missing) window plate and mirror, so that this could be used as a solar microscope.
label: Description
content: Colby College was established in 1813, and may have acquired this microscope at that time.
label: Description
content: Ref: Deborah Warner, “Projection Apparatus for Science in Antebellum America,” <i>Rittenhouse</i> 6 (1992): 87-94.
label: Description
content: Gerard L’E Turner, <i>The Great Age of the Microscope</i> (Bristol and New York, 1989), p. 236.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: Subject
content: Science & Scientific Instruments
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
label: See more items in
content: Microscopes
label: See more items in
content: Science & Mathematics
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Colby College
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.329685
label: accession number
content: 273104
label: catalog number
content: 329685
objectType: label: Object Name
content: microscope
label: Object Name
content: solar microscope
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: brass (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: box: 3 in x 11 in x 7 in; 7.62 cm x 27.94 cm x 17.78 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall in box: 3 in x 11 in x 6 7/8 in; 7.62 cm x 27.94 cm x 17.4625 cm