ACCESSORIES FOR COMPOUND MONOCULAR BAR LIMB MICROSCOPE

MAKER: ANDREW ROSS

c. 1844

Two original live boxes, referred to in the literature of the time as Varley's Animalcula Cages are present. Varley's improvement (which he called his capillary tablet, was the fact that the central glass tablet on the bottom portion had a slanted edge and a black trough around it that serves as a reservoir for the fluid medium that the specimen would be in, attracted by capillary action to the specimen, reducing the speed at which it would dry out. The versions shown here are the improved versions, with the central glass tablet at the top of the inner cylinder instead of the bottom, and in the tops, the provision to easily replace the glass that covers the tablet.