and Laboratory Methods. 



2441 



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Journal of 



Applied Microscopy 



and 



Laboratory Methods 



Edited by L. B. ELLIOTT. 



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The Semi Centennial of the Optical Industry in America. — We had 

 the pleasure of witnessing in our city on July 24th and 25th the Golden Jubilee 

 of what is really the anniversary of the optical industry in America, and since 

 our readers are so much interested in the products of the company whose fiftieth 

 anniversary was just commemorated, we have thought best to include a brief 

 account of it. 



The Bausch i.\: Lomb Optical Company was founded in July, 1853, by the 

 association of Mr. J. J. Bausch and Mr. Henry Lomb. At this time there was 

 practically no optical work done in America, the optical and scientific apparatus 

 used being brought into the country from abroad. It was of a very inferior 

 quality, as compared with the standards of to-day, and its high price made it 

 extremely rare to find a laboratory with any equipment of microscopes or other 

 optical appliances ; and while Bausch & Lomb did not, in the beginning, manu- 

 facture microscopes, they at once began the manufacture of lenses, and it was 

 their continued efforts in this line which later made it possible for them to take 

 up the manufacture of the more delicate optical instruments with which their 

 names are so widely connected in the scientific world to-day. 



The first lenses were ground on an old fashioned hand machine in the first 

 office in the Reynolds Arcade in this city. They were spectacle lenses which 

 were fitted into sheet horn, imported from abroad. The growth of the industry, 

 which received its chief impetus through the high price of gold during the civil 

 war, by which a demand for horn and later for vulcanite- framed eyeglasses was 

 created, necessitated the taking of a factory on the corner of Andrews and Water 

 streets in 1854. The demand for eyeglass frames set with lenses having very 

 considerably increased, it was deemed advisable to manufacture all the lenses, 

 instead of importing them, as previously, and a power lens-grinding and polish- 

 ing machine was devised by Mr. Bausch, who thus established the first power 

 lens-grinding plant in America. The lens-grinding facilities were gradually 

 increased until, in 1868, it was necessary to take a larger building on the corner of 

 River and Water streets. Here the work of perfecting the lens-grinding pro- 

 cess was continued until 1874, when the business had outgrown the facilities 

 at hand, and a new building was constructed on the site of the present factory, 

 where a larger and more complete lens-grinding equipment was installed, new 

 and improved grinding devices having been designed and built for the purpose. 



It was in the year 1875 that the manufacture of microscopes was commenced 

 under the supervision of Mr. E. Gundlach, one of the most advanced scientific 

 opticians of his time, who remained with the company for the first two years after 

 the beginning of the experiments in the development of microscopes. A year of 

 hard work and experimentation was consumed in getting the first models of 

 microscopes in a satisfactory condition. These models were exhibited at the 

 Centennial exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, and created a very favorable 

 impression among the scientific men who examined them. There was a general 

 desire among the scientific and educational workers at this time to use the 

 microscope as an accessory in teaching biological and other sciences, but the 

 prices at which good microscopes could be had were prohibitive ; in fact, no 



