Page:Micrographia - or some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses with observations and inquiries thereupon.djvu/32

Rh ''means, the longer the Glass be, the bigger aperture will it bear, if the Glasses be of an equal goodness in their kind. Therefore a six will indure a much larger Aperture then a three foot Glass; and a sixty foot Glass will proportionably bear a greater Aperture then a thirty, and will as much excel it also as a six foot does a three foot, as I have experimentally observ'd in one of that length made by Mr. Richard Reives here at London, which will bear an Aperture above three inches over, and yet make the Object proportionably big and distinct; whereas there are very few thirty foot Glasses that will indure an Aperture of more then two inches over. So that for Telescopes, supposing we had a very ready way of making their Object Glasses of exactly spherical Surfaces, we might, by increasing the length of the Glass, magnifie the Object to any assignable bigness. And for performing both these, I cannot imagine any way more easie, and more exact, then by this following Engine, by means of which, any Glasses, of what length soever, may be speedily made. It seems the most easie, because with one and the same Tool may be with care ground an Object Glass, of any length or breadth requisite, and that with very little or no trouble in fitting the Engine, and without much skill in the Grinder. It seems to be the most exact, for to the very last stroke the Glass does regulate and rectifie the Tool to its exact Figure; and the longer or more the Tool and Glass are wrought together, the more exact will both of them be of the desir'd Figure. Further, the motions of the Glass and Tool do so cross each other, that there is not one point of eithers Surface, but has thousands of cross motions thwarting it, so that there can be no kind of Rings or Gutters made either in the Tool or Glass.''

The contrivance of the Engine is, only to make the ends of two large Mandrils so to move, that the Centers of them may be at any convenient distance asunder, and that the Axis of the Mandrils lying both in the same plain produc'd, may meet each other in any assignable Angle; both which requisites may be very well perform'd by the Engine describ'd in the third Figure of the first Scheme: where A B signifies the Beam of a Lath fixt perpendicularly or Horizontally, C D the two Poppet heads, fixt at about two foot distance, E F an Iron Mandril, whose tapering neck F runs in an adapted tapering brass Collar; the other end E runs on the point of a Screw G; in a convenient place of this is fastned H a pully Wheel, and into the end of it, that comes through the Poppet head C, is screwed a Ring of a hollow Cylinder K, or some other conveniently shap'd Tool, of what wideness shall Rh