THE NATURALIST. 



JULY, 1832. 



THE MICROSCOPE 



NO. I. 



The microscope, derived from the Greek mikros^ small, and 

 skopeo, to see, is an instrument for viewing minute objects; and it 

 apparently magnifies objects, because they enable us to see them 

 nearer than with the naked eye, without affecting the distinctness 

 of vision. By making a pinhole tlirough a piece of paper, then 

 bringing the eye close to the hole, and the paper within two or 

 three inches of any small object, the object will apparently be 

 much magnified, though without the paper, it would at that dis- 

 tance have been imperceptible. 



There are thi-ee kinds of microscopes; the single, the com- 

 pound, and the solar. 



Single microscopes, of the greatest power, are very small glo- 

 bules, of glass, which are made by melting the ends of fine threads 

 of glass in the flame of a candle; or by taking a little fine powder- 

 ed glass on the point of a very small needle, and melting it into a 

 globule. With such microscopes as these, Leuwenhoek made 

 all his wonderful discoveries. The most wonderful single micro- 

 scopes are those lately made of diamond. The compound micro- 

 scope consists of at least two lenses, by one of which an image is 

 formed within the tube of the microscope; and this image is view- 

 ed through the eyeglass, instead of the object itself, as in the sin- 

 gle microscope. The microscope being intended only for minute 

 objects, the object lens is consequently of a short focus, and the 

 eyeglass, in this case, is not of so high a magnifying power as in 

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