Object Details
retailer
Benjamin Pike & Son
Description
Solar microscopes of this sort were introduced around 1740 and were still popular in the nineteenth century. Wesleyan University may have acquired this example soon after its founding in 1831. The “Benj. Pike & Son, New York” inscription indicates the firm that sold it, but not necessarily the firm that made it.
Ref: Benjamin Pike, Jr., Pike’s Illustrated Descriptive Catalogue of Optical, Mathematical, and Philosophical Instruments (New York, 1856), vol. 2, pp. 239-244.
Deborah Warner, “Projection Apparatus for Science in Antebellum America,” Rittenhouse 6 (1992): 87-94.
Location
Currently not on view
Credit Line
Wesleyan University
date made
1830-1850
ID Number
1989.0013.04
accession number
1989.0013
catalog number
1989.0013.04
Object Name
Solar Microscope
solar microscope
Physical Description
wood (overall material)
brass (overall material)
Measurements
part: 7 3/4 in x 3 1/2 in; 19.685 cm x 8.89 cm
part: 5 in x 2 1/4 in; 12.7 cm x 5.715 cm
overall in box: 5 in x 15 in x 8 15/16 in; 12.7 cm x 38.1 cm x 22.70125 cm
See more items in
Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
Microscopes
Science & Mathematics
Data Source
National Museum of American History
Subject
Science & Scientific Instruments
Link to Original Record
Record ID
nmah_1460927