ORIGINS OF MODERNITY

natural philosophy

Adams, George (1750-1795)
Essays on the microscope… Vol.2 Plates
London : Printed for the author by Robert Hindmarsh; ... and sold by the author, 1787.

The beautiful plates in this volume illustrate not only the plants and insects as seen through the microscope, but the instrument itself. Early modern microscopy opened up a whole new world to human observation, but surprisingly microscope design did not markedly improve during the eighteenth century. These diagrams and the microscope used to create them were no better than those of one hundred years before by Robert Hooke in his Micrographia.