164 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 



Galileo Microscopes in Florence. Prof. Govi's paper had brouglit to a 

 focus Ms own desire to examine thoroughly the so-called Janssen 

 Microscope at Middelburg, which he had not been able to do to his 

 satisfaction when it was exhibited at the South Kensington Loan Col- 

 lection in 1876. Since the previous meeting he had therefore been to 

 Middelburg, and by the courtesy of the curator of the museum (Mr. 

 Fredericks) he had had every facility to enable him to examine and 

 photograph the Microscope, and also the telescope with which it was 

 traditionally associated. Mr. Mayall said the question of the authen- 

 ticity of these instruments — the possibility of referring their construction 

 to the hands of " Janse " — one of the two or three alleged Dutch inventors 

 of the Microscope and telescope, and whose house is commemorated as 

 having existed against the church wall in 1590 by a tablet on the spot — 

 was a difficult matter on which he could only touch with diffidence. 

 The facts seem to be that in 1866 a member of a well-known family in 

 Middelburg named Sniders presented to the museum two instruments 

 which he designated telescopes, saying they had been in the possession 

 of his family for a long time, and that they had always been considered 

 as made by Janssen. The authorities of the museum requested the late 

 Prof. Harting, of Utrecht University, to examine and report upon the 

 instruments, which he did, explaining, of course, that the smaller one 

 was evidently a Microscope. He (Mr. Mayall) had no difficulty in 

 admitting the possibility of the instruments being of great age. View- 

 ing them with a somewhat experienced eye in the examination of old 

 optical instruments in the various collections in Europe, he thought their 

 design and construction clearly indicated very early forms. It should 

 also be noted that in a quiet, stay-at-home town like Middelburg, where 

 generations of families have occupied the same houses in many cases for 

 two or three centuries, the mere traditional association of the instruments 

 with the name of Janssen would be far more likely to be transmitted 

 truthfully than would obtain, for instance, in London, where the rule 

 was incessant change of people and their surroundings. On the sup- 

 position that the instruments were genuine productions representing the 

 types in vogue when they were made, he should unhesitatingly affirm 

 the Microscope to be older than the so-called Galileo Microscopes ; 

 while as to the telescope, the built-up iron fixed tube of 14 feet in length, 

 with the funnel-like eye-piece having a few inches range of motion, in 

 which there was probably inserted an eye-lens consisting of a large disc 

 of glass having a small concave ground and polished in the centre of one 

 side, he thought the arrangement all pointed to an extremely primitive 

 type of instrument. 



The President thought they were much indebted to Mr. Mayall for 

 his very interesting account of these old instruments. He thought he 

 understood him to say he had seen an eye-lens made of a plate of glass 

 with a concavity in the centre. Was that so ? 



Mr. Mayall said he had one of that construction in his possession. 

 The telescope had a focus of 30 in. to 40 in., and bore the name iacob 

 CVNIGHAM, and the date 1661. 



The President said nothing was more curious than the dijBferent 

 estimates which a number of people or children unaccustomed to make 

 comparisons would make as to the apparent size of any given object — 

 for instance, the moon ; one would say as big as a saucer ; another, a 

 yard ; and so on. 



