Solar Microscope
date: label: date made
content: 1830-1850
name: label: retailer
content: Benjamin Pike & Son
notes: label: Description
content: Solar microscopes of this sort were introduced around 1740 and were still popular in the nineteenth century. Wesleyan University may have acquired this example soon after its founding in 1831. The “Benj. Pike & Son, New York” inscription indicates the firm that sold it, but not necessarily the firm that made it.
label: Description
content: Ref: Benjamin Pike, Jr., <i>Pike’s Illustrated Descriptive Catalogue of Optical, Mathematical, and Philosophical Instruments</i> (New York, 1856), vol. 2, pp. 239-244.
label: Description
content: Deborah Warner, “Projection Apparatus for Science in Antebellum America,” <i>Rittenhouse</i> 6 (1992): 87-94.
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
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content: Science & Mathematics
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Wesleyan University
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1989.0013.04
label: accession number
content: 1989.0013
label: catalog number
content: 1989.0013.04
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Solar Microscope
label: Object Name
content: solar microscope
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: wood (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: brass (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: part: 7 3/4 in x 3 1/2 in; 19.685 cm x 8.89 cm
label: Measurements
content: part: 5 in x 2 1/4 in; 12.7 cm x 5.715 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall in box: 5 in x 15 in x 8 15/16 in; 12.7 cm x 38.1 cm x 22.70125 cm