( 483 ) 



ON THE FIRST INVENTION OF TELESCOPES, &c. 



By Dr. G. MOLL, of Utrecht. 



(Concluded from page 332.) 



TTAVING heard what was adduced on the side of Lipper- 

 shey, we must now turn to the witnesses of Zacharias 

 Tausz, or Taussen. 



The first of these is the ambassador, Boreel himself, a man 

 alike respectable for his rank, character, and abilities. He 

 says, that in 1591, the year in which he (Boreel) was born, a 

 spectacle-maker lived near his father's house at Middelburg j 

 that this man's name was Hans, his wife's Maria, and that, 

 besides two daughters, he had a son called Zacharias ; that 

 Boreel knew this Zacharias intimately, they having been play- 

 mates. This Hans, i. e, John, with his son Zacharias, as Boreel 

 often heard, invented the first microscope, which was presented 

 to Prince Maurice, and they obtained some reward. A similar 

 microscope was afterwards offered by them to the Archduke 

 Albert of Austria. When Boreel was ambassador in Eng- 

 land in 1639, he saw that identical microscope there, in the 

 possession of Cornelius Drebbel, of Alkmar, a man of much 

 knowledge, and mathematician to King James, the Archduke 

 having presented the microscope to Drebbel. This microscope 

 of Zacharias ^Yas not, continues Boreel, as they are shown at 

 present, with a short tube ; but it was about eighteen inches 

 long, and two inches in diameter, with a tube of gilt copper, 

 resting on two sculptured dolphins ; under it was a disc of 

 ebony, on which the objects to be examined were placed *. 

 But long after, in 1610, by dint of research, they (i. e. Hans 

 and Zacharias) invented in Middelburg the long sidereal tele- 

 scopes, with which we gaze at the moon, the planets, stars, 

 and heavenly bodies, of which a specimen was given to Prince 

 Maurice, who kept it secret, judging it useful in expeditions. 

 However, as this admirable invention was rumoured about, 

 and as curious men were talking about it in Holland and 



* A stage. 



