Fig. 22.
The greater part of the directions for viewing and illuminating objects given in reference to the simple microscope are applicable to the compound. An argand lamp placed in the focus of a large detached lens so as to throw parallel rays upon the mirror, is the best artificial light; and for opaque objects the light so thrown up may be reflected by metallic specula (called, from their inventor, Lieberkhuns) attached to the object-glasses.
It has been recently proposed by Sir David Brewster and by M. Dujardin to render the Wollaston condenser achromatic, and they have accordingly been made with three pairs of achromatic lenses instead of the single lens before described, with very excellent effect. The last-mentioned gentleman has also projected an ingenious apparatus, called the Hyptioscope, attached to the eye-piece for the purpose of erecting the magnified picture.
The erector commonly applied to the compound microscope consists of a pair of lenses acting like the erecting eye-piece of the telescope. But this, though it is convenient for the purpose of dissection, very much impairs the optical performance of the instrument.
Fig. 23.
For drawing the images presented by the microscope the best apparatus consists of a mirror M (Fig. 23), composed of a thin piece of rather dark-colored glass cemented on to a piece of plate-glass inclined at an angle of 45° in front of the eye-glass E. The light escaping from the eye-glass is assisted in its reflection upwards to the eye by the dark glass, which effects the further useful purpose of rendering the paper less brilliant, and thus enabling the eye better to see the reflected image. The lens L below the reflector is to cause the light from the paper and pencil to diverge from the same distance as that received from the eye-glass; in other words, to cause it to reach the eye in parallel lines.
Fig. 24.
Dr. Wollaston’s camera lucida, as shown in Fig. 24, is sometimes attached to the eye-piece of the microscope for the same purpose. In this instrument the rays suffer two internal reflections within the glass prism, as will be seen explained in the article “Camera Lucida.” In this minute figure we have omitted to trace the reflected rays, merely to avoid confusion.