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The companion to the microscope with a description of C. Gould's improved pocket compound microscope 1829
Many persons who have purchased microscopes, after entertaining themselves and friends with the slides that accompany the instrument, have found themselves at a loss for new objects; consequently, it has been laid aside, as of little further use ; but no invention is capable of affording more entertainment and instruction than this instrument, opening a new world, and displaying the most extensive scenes of creative power, wisdom, and design. It is presumed this small treatise will be the means of showing a more extended field, as it contains every direction with regard to procuring and applying the most interesting subjects for examination by the Microscope : also the method of producing those wonderful objects of the minute creation, the animalcules in vegetable infusions. It comprises, likewise, a list of upwards of two hundred different objects, and a Description of C. Gould’s New Improved Pocket Compound Microscope, the most complete Microscope made. Its extreme portability and great magnifying power will recommend it strongly to the naturalist, mineralogist, and botanist, as it has sufficient powers to discover the most minute animalcule and seed vessels; it combines the uses of the Single, Compound, Opaque, and Aquatic Microscopes; and has been found, upon comparison, by several scientific gentlemen, superior in power and more distinct than many of the largest and most expensive instruments of the kind; —it shuts up in a case, three inches by three and a half, and may be carried in the pocket without the slightest inconvenience.
64 pages, Leather Bound
Published January 1, 2017
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October 27, 2023I read this book as a research assistant and ended up buying a beginner/student microscope off the internet afterwards because I am irresponsible like that. When I worked in engineering, I used to read a lot of technical documents like this for my job, but they were written not for microscopes but for microchips (where companies compile various projects and applications their products are capable of, as a means of marketing their microchips; perhaps one of the most famously developed of these, in a certain sense, being Arduino's prototyping platform / microcontroller board which has become a product in its own right with scores of projects compiled for it all over the internet).
The book (available on archive.org) is written by Charles Gould, a British merchant trading scientific instruments in London from 1825-1839. He was an apprentice of William Cary (Cary trained under the mathematician Jesse Ramsden whose survey instruments were widely used for cartography initiatives and surveys conducted for the British Empire) and is known for designing a pocket microscope, which is named after Cary and him. The microscope is described and illustrated by him in this book and also describes various objects and experiments that would be of interest to microscope owners, as a means of promoting the microscope as an object of sustainable interest and use for potential owners. Instructions are provided for preparing vegetable infusions and producing animalcules (‘infusaria’) from easily accessible outdoor objects like decayed leaves or pond water. It provides clear instructions regarding how the microscope instrument could be used to view animalcules and what were notable phenomena worth observing, including “hair-like animalcules” and “oat animalcules”.
There's an interesting 2019 paper by Meegan Kennedy called “‘Throes and Struggles … Witnessed with Painful Distinctness’: The Oxy-Hydrogen Microscope, Performing Science, and the Projection of the Moving Image.” in the journal Victorian Studies that discusses Gould a bit too. She writes:
"“Table microscopes shone in parlors and kitchens as well as laboratories; pinhole microscopes offered amusement for a penny. The oxy-hydrogen microscope, described above in an 1835 guidebook by optician Charles Gould, attracted crowds of eager viewers at exhibitions such as the one Gould’s partner John Cary had opened in 1833... In just this way, viewers of oxy-hydrogen shows often compared animalcules to recognizable (exotic) animals such as “lions and tigers,” leopards, elephants, and camels (Altick 370). Gould’s manual on projection microscopes describes aquatic larvae as “magnified in these splendid instruments to an enormous size, many of them as large as the crocodile, and appear as destructive [sic]” (28). The head of the “water-lion,” he says, is “armed with a pair of fangs . . . with which it holds its prey, which it seizes like a lion” (Gould 31)."
To contextualize this in the period's literary milieu Kennedy writes in her abstract: "In Middlemarch (1871-72), Lydgate fantasizes about using oxy-hydrogen light for scientific discovery, but researchers rejected the technology. Instead, thousands of Victorians attended oxy-hydrogen shows where operators staged and scripted scenes of animalcules in lively motion, sparking interest in microscopy"
The paper goes on to discuss how this sort of spectacle and cinematic history became intertwined with the history of microscopic instruments. Microscopy shows must be the clearest progenitor of youtube channels like "Journey to the Microcosmos" where you can watch videos narrated by Hank Green about tiny mites that live on our face.
Finally a little excerpt from the introduction of this little book by Gould:
"THE COMPANION TO THE MICROSCOPE. MANY persons who have purchased Microscopes, after entertaining themselves and friends with the slides that accompany the instrument, have found themselves at a loss I for new objects; consequently, it has been laid aside, as of little further use: but no invention is capable of affording more entertainment and instruction than this instrument, opening a new world, and displaying the most extensive scenes of creative power, wisdom, and design. It is presumed this small treatise will be the means of showing a more extended field, as it contains every direction with regard to procuring and applying the most interesting subjects for examination by the Microscope: also the method of producing those wonderful objects of the minute creation, the animalcules in vegetable infusions. It comprises, likewise, a list of upwards of two hundred different objects, and a Description of C. Gould's New Improved Pocket Compound Microscope, the most complete Microscope made."
The book (available on archive.org) is written by Charles Gould, a British merchant trading scientific instruments in London from 1825-1839. He was an apprentice of William Cary (Cary trained under the mathematician Jesse Ramsden whose survey instruments were widely used for cartography initiatives and surveys conducted for the British Empire) and is known for designing a pocket microscope, which is named after Cary and him. The microscope is described and illustrated by him in this book and also describes various objects and experiments that would be of interest to microscope owners, as a means of promoting the microscope as an object of sustainable interest and use for potential owners. Instructions are provided for preparing vegetable infusions and producing animalcules (‘infusaria’) from easily accessible outdoor objects like decayed leaves or pond water. It provides clear instructions regarding how the microscope instrument could be used to view animalcules and what were notable phenomena worth observing, including “hair-like animalcules” and “oat animalcules”.
There's an interesting 2019 paper by Meegan Kennedy called “‘Throes and Struggles … Witnessed with Painful Distinctness’: The Oxy-Hydrogen Microscope, Performing Science, and the Projection of the Moving Image.” in the journal Victorian Studies that discusses Gould a bit too. She writes:
"“Table microscopes shone in parlors and kitchens as well as laboratories; pinhole microscopes offered amusement for a penny. The oxy-hydrogen microscope, described above in an 1835 guidebook by optician Charles Gould, attracted crowds of eager viewers at exhibitions such as the one Gould’s partner John Cary had opened in 1833... In just this way, viewers of oxy-hydrogen shows often compared animalcules to recognizable (exotic) animals such as “lions and tigers,” leopards, elephants, and camels (Altick 370). Gould’s manual on projection microscopes describes aquatic larvae as “magnified in these splendid instruments to an enormous size, many of them as large as the crocodile, and appear as destructive [sic]” (28). The head of the “water-lion,” he says, is “armed with a pair of fangs . . . with which it holds its prey, which it seizes like a lion” (Gould 31)."
To contextualize this in the period's literary milieu Kennedy writes in her abstract: "In Middlemarch (1871-72), Lydgate fantasizes about using oxy-hydrogen light for scientific discovery, but researchers rejected the technology. Instead, thousands of Victorians attended oxy-hydrogen shows where operators staged and scripted scenes of animalcules in lively motion, sparking interest in microscopy"
The paper goes on to discuss how this sort of spectacle and cinematic history became intertwined with the history of microscopic instruments. Microscopy shows must be the clearest progenitor of youtube channels like "Journey to the Microcosmos" where you can watch videos narrated by Hank Green about tiny mites that live on our face.
Finally a little excerpt from the introduction of this little book by Gould:
"THE COMPANION TO THE MICROSCOPE. MANY persons who have purchased Microscopes, after entertaining themselves and friends with the slides that accompany the instrument, have found themselves at a loss I for new objects; consequently, it has been laid aside, as of little further use: but no invention is capable of affording more entertainment and instruction than this instrument, opening a new world, and displaying the most extensive scenes of creative power, wisdom, and design. It is presumed this small treatise will be the means of showing a more extended field, as it contains every direction with regard to procuring and applying the most interesting subjects for examination by the Microscope: also the method of producing those wonderful objects of the minute creation, the animalcules in vegetable infusions. It comprises, likewise, a list of upwards of two hundred different objects, and a Description of C. Gould's New Improved Pocket Compound Microscope, the most complete Microscope made."
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