PLAIN INSTRUCTIONS 



FOR 



THE USE OF THE MICROSCOPE. 



CHAPTER I. 



HISTORY OF THE MICROSCOPE. 



3. THE History of the Microscope, like that of many other valuable 

 inventions, has been veiled in considerable obscurity by the lapse of 

 time. It seems pretty certain that the ancients were not unacquainted 

 with the microscope, in one at least of those forms of which we shall 

 have to speak, if we are to give credence to a passage in Seneca. 

 " Letters," says he, " though minute and obscure, appear larger and 

 clearer through a glass bubble filled with water" Amongst the 

 moderns, (for during the middle ages it appears to have been entirely 

 lost,) the honor of its discovery has been claimed by many individuals. 

 By Huygens, the celebrated Dutch mathematician, its invention is 

 attributed to one of his countrymen, named Drebell. Microscopes 

 were constructed by him in the year 1521, that is to say shortly after 

 the invention of the telescope. It is asserted by Borrelli, that Jansen, 

 the reputed contriver of the telescope, was its inventor, and that he 

 presented some such instruments to Prince Maurice, and Albert, Arch- 

 duke of Austria. These instruments were six feet in length, and con- 

 sisted of a tube of gilt copper, supported by thin brass pillars in the 

 shape of dolphins, on a base of ebony, which was adapted to hold the 

 objects to be examined. Of the internal construction of this micro- 

 scope we have no account, though there is reason to believe that it was 

 nothing more than a telescope converted into a microscope. Viviani, 



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