Microscope

A brass tube with lenses magnified small objects, and ivory slides held the specimens for viewing.

Date: 1730-1760
Materials: brass (overall material); glass (overall material); ivory (overall material); wood (overall material); shargreen (overall material)
Dimensions: overall: 1 3/4 in x 5 1/2 in x 3 3/4 in; 4.445 cm x 13.97 cm x 9.525 cm
Museum: National Museum of American History
Credit line: Gift of American Pharmaceutical Association and Bristol-Myers Squibb Company

Brass screw barrel microscope with several lenses, ivory handle, six ivory slides, and wooden box covered with dark fish skin. James Wilson, an optical instrument maker in London, described the form in 1702. He did not make the first instruments of this sort, and never claimed to, but the form was often associated with him.

Ref: James Wilson, “The Description and Manner of Using a Late Invented Set of Small Pocket-Microscopes, Made by James Wilson,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 23 (1702): 1241-1247.

Reginald Clay and Thomas Court, The History of the Microscope (London, 1932), pp. 44-50.

The museum's own record (Smithsonian, National Museum of American History)