Few accounts have survived detailing the techniques employed for the production of optical glass for astronomical and microscopical instruments during the seventeenth century in Italy; the period during which the art was being developed in the shops of Eustachio Divini and Giuseppe Campani, and other optical instrument-makers. Indeed, few of the tools of the lens-makers have been described in any detail, and few if any have survived. Consequently, the discovery of a hitherto apparently unknown Italian treatise, or what appears to (...) have been notes for a shop manual of the period, is a contribution to present knowledge of lens-making technology even though the identity and region of the author remain unknown. (shrink)

A measure of the interest in and extent of science teaching in colonial American colleges may be judged to a large degree by their investment in scientific instruments and apparatus. Fairly adequate records of acquisition of these teaching aids have been preserved by Harvard, Yale, William and Mary, and Dartmouth Colleges, and have been published. The scientific collections of other colleges that have not been previously studied are those of the College of Philadelphia , College of New Jersey , College (...) of Rhode Island and King's College, later Columbia University in the City of New York. It is with the last-named that this study is mainly concerned. (shrink)

Summary Although by the mid-eighteenth century colonial American makers of mathematical instruments were producing many of the scientific instruments required in the British Colonies of North America for surveying and navigation, it was not until after the first quarter of the nineteenth century that American makers had the capability to produce sophisticated precision optical instruments for astronomy and microscopy. Until then, these had to be imported from overseas, chiefly England, at considerable cost and after long delays. Included among them were (...) historically important instruments required for establishing provincial and territorial boundaries, and for making astronomical observations. Although generally treated with the utmost care while in use, eventually one after another was misplaced, lost, destroyed by fire, or, in one instance, carefully hidden away then forgotten until it was discovered more than a century later. (shrink)