Microscope
date: label: date made
content: late 1880s
name: label: maker
content: Bausch & Lomb Optical Company
notes: label: Description
content: George Wale, an English immigrant then living in New Jersey, showed his “New Working Microscope” at the American Institute Exhibition of 1879 and took home a Medal of Excellence, the judges reporting that “it is one of the most perfect, if not the most perfect moderate sized instrument produced, for the low price at which it sells, by any optician to this day.” Its key feature was a method of hanging the body so that it could be made to incline at any angle without diminishing its stability.
label: Description
content: The “New Student Microscope” that Bausch & Lomb introduced in 1886 was said to be “constructed on the Wale principle of concentric inclination of the arm, by which the instrument becomes more firm the further it is inclined.” This example is of that sort. It is a compound monocular with coarse and fine focus, trunnion, circular stage, support for sub-stage mirror, and U-shaped base. The stage is inscribed “Bausch & Lomb / Optical Co.” The objective is missing.
label: Description
content: Ref: American Institute Judges quoted in <i>American Journal of Microscopy</i> 5 (1880): 24.
label: Description
content: “New Student Microscope,” <i>The Microscope</i> 6 (1886): 199.
label: Description
content: “Bausch & Lomb Optical Co.’s New Student Microscope,” <i>Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society</i> 6 (Dec. 1886): 1037-1038.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York, Rochester
label: associated place
content: United States: New York, Rochester
topic: label: Subject
content: Science & Scientific Instruments
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Medicine
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content: Microscopes
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content: Science & Mathematics
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Bausch & Lomb Optical Company
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MG.M-12191
label: accession number
content: 272522
label: catalog number
content: M-12191
objectType: label: Object Name
content: microscope
label: Other Terms
content: microscope; Monocular; Compound
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: steel (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: brass (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: glass (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: black (overall color)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 29 cm x 10.4 cm x 16.4 cm; 11 13/32 in x 4 3/32 in x 6 15/32 in