66 THE MICROSCOPE. 



on thin paper held before a hole in a window shutter filled with a 

 lens, and through which the sun's rays could pass. This was the 

 hint on which Kircher, who died r66o, based his theory and struc- 

 ture of a magic lantern, doing by night what Porta could do only in 

 the day time. 



How great really is our obligation to Kircher for his magic 

 lantern we can scarcely appreciate, until we reflect upon the great 

 amount of instructive entertainment derived from his invention and 

 its outgrowths by the generations succeeding him. 



According to Priestley (Optics, p. 76) the invention of the tele- 

 scope ante-dated that of the microscope (he here quotes Borellus 

 on the invention of the microscope) by a few years, and that we are 

 indebted for both instruments to Zacharias and Johannes Jansen, of 

 Middleburgh — men thoroughly versed in the philosophy of their 

 time and first-class mechanics. This account by Borellus is well 

 supported by circumstantial "evidence that, notwithstanding the 

 claims made by other inventors to the priority, we feel well assured 

 of the justness of the Jansens'. Borellus' account is substantially as 

 follows: About 1590, the Jensens presented to Prince Maurice and 

 Albert, Archduke of Austria, the first microscope they had con- 

 structed. Wm. Borellus, in a letter to his brother, Peter, stated that 

 in 1619, during his stay in England as officer under the government, 

 he was shown a microscope by Cornelius Drebell, who said the 

 instrument was the same that was given to the archduke, from whom 

 he had received it, and that it was made by Jansen. 



Adams, the younger, in his Essays, dates the invention 1580, 

 giving no authority for said date, but giving the credit to the Jansens. 



Baker, in his Microscope Made Eas}^, gives same parties the 

 credit, but as late as 1620. 



As described by Borellus in his work previously referred to, 

 this microscope, brought to England by Drebell, was not what we 

 would now call strictly a microscope. "It consisted of a gilt cop- 

 per tube six feet long and one inch in diameter, supported by three 

 brass pillars in form of dolphins. These were fixed on an ebony 

 base, on which objects to be viewed were placed." 



We find in 1646, Fontana, an Italian, the same who claimed 

 the invention of telescopes, publishes his account of a microscope 

 which he said he made and exhibited in 1618, but he has nothing to 

 support his statement. 



