186 The Origin and Development of Museums. [March, 
Germany, and the Academy of Sciences in Paris. These three, 
founded nearly at the same time, between 1660 and 1670, have 
published their valuable transactions during two centuries, con- 
taining an immense number of facts and speculations which prove 
clearly that union is power. The facility of publishing isolated 
facts, otherwise lost, advanced science and her tools, the collec- 
tions, in a remarkable degree. Naturally, from this time forth, 
new societies were founded year by year, all doing more or less 
valuable service. 
In the mean time a very important discovery was made, that 
of the microscope. Formerly, natural history consisted only. of 
observations made with the naked eye, but now the field of obser- 
vation was enlarged in a manner not dreamed of. before. Of 
course collections, becoming by degrees living archives of science, 
were allowed to be established on a larger scale. 
It is well known that magnifying-glasses have been found 
among the Assyrian relics and the ruins of Pompeii, but the use 
of their magnifying power is nowhere recorded, though it is 
probable that some of the admirable gems of the ancients were 
cut with the help of lenses, Spectacles, perhaps in some way 
known in Rome, and even used by Nero, are said to have been 
invented at the end of the thirteenth century in Italy. Mag- 
nifying-glasses were manufactured by Arabians, and later by 
Roger Bacon, but certainly not used for the purposes of natural 
history before the beginning of the seventeenth century. Italy 
and Holland dispute the honor of the invention, which was per- 
haps simultaneous in the two countries. The great advantages 
of lenses for observation were directly acknowledged, and even 
augmented, by the invention of the compound microscope. Fon- 
tana in Rome and Drebbel in Holland are the rival inventors. 
The old fame of Italy was now declining, and religious fanati- 
cism hindered more and more the development of science. Un- 
fortunately, also, the famous wealth of the Italian merchants was 
_ destroyed bythe refusal of a number of prominent princes to pay 
their debts, enormous sums of money advanced by Italian bank- 
ers. These circumstances, together with the general change of 
the old routes of trade, gave an important advantage to the Dutch 
Protestants. The easily amassed fortune was largely used to 
advance culture and science, and the small Dutch country be- 
came for more than a century the leading nation in fashion, 
taste, and science, till her French and English neighbors put 
themselves somewhat roughly in her place. The particular taste 
