Microscopical Essays. o 



brought one, which was made by them, with him into England, 

 and (hewed it to William Borrell and others. It is ppffible this 

 Inftrument of Drebell's was not ftridly what is now meant by a 

 microfcope, but was rather a kind of microfcopic telefcope, 

 fomething fimilar in principle to that lately defcribed by Mr. 

 Aepinus, in a letter to the Academy of Sciences at Petersburg, 

 It was formed of a copper tube fix feet long and one inch 

 diameter, fupported by three brafs pillars in the fhape of dol- 

 phins 5 thefe were fixed to a bafe of ebony, on which the objects 

 to be viewed by the microfcope were alfo placed. In contra- 

 diction to this, Fontana, in a work which he published in 1646, 

 fays, that he had made microfcopes in the year 1618 : this may 

 be alfo very true, without derogating from the merit of the Jan- 

 fens, for we have many inftances in our own times of more than 

 one perfon having executed the fame contrivance, nearly at the 

 fame time, without any communication from one to the other. 

 In 1685, Stelluti publifheda defcription of the parts of a bee, 

 which he had examined with a microfcope. 



If we confider the microfcope as an inftrument confiding of 

 one lens only, it is not at all improbable, that it was known to the 

 ancients much fooner than the laft century, nay, even in a degree 

 to the Greeks and Romans : for it is certain, that fpeclacles were 

 in ufe long before the above-mentioned period : now as the 

 glafles of thefe were made of different convexities, and con fre- 

 quently of different magnifying powers, it is natural to fuppofe, 

 that fmaller and more convex lenfes were made, and applied to 

 the examination of minute objects. In this fenfe, there is alfo 

 -feme ground for thinking the ancients were not ignorant of the 

 ufe of lenfes, or at leafl of what approached nearly to, and might 



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