The first
microscopes had big failings. The image was dull, with color stripes and a
rainbow glow. It was not so easy to observe in such an instrument: an
unaccustomed eye could hardly make out anything in this interweaving of light
and shadows.
Some scientists
tried to build more powerful microscopes, they put various lenses in one or
another combination into the tube — the magnification sometimes turned out to
be very strong. But the colored stripes and the rainbow radiance grew so much
that they almost completely overshadowed the image.
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| The Zoo Under the Microscope |
Then the masters
tried to put the lens and the magnifier farther from each other. The image did
get bigger, but it dimmed so that it was completely impossible to make out. It
was terribly insulting: all hopes were crumbling, the microscope magnified more
than a hundred times, but what was the use of it if it was impossible to make
out the image!
In the end, only
one glass began to be inserted into the metal plate. But then they did not
spare time or labor on polishing this glass. These pea-sized lenses magnified a
hundred times or more. As a matter of fact, these were powerful magnifiers, not
microscopes.
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| Levenguk and his discoveries |
The Dutchman
Anthony Levenguk, a gatekeeper of a town hall, learned to perfectly grind tiny
lenses. He was an unusually persistent man. Once Levenguk inserted a small lens,
as large as a pin-head, into the hole in a wooden plank. He had been grinding
and polishing it for several weeks. Then he took a thin glass rod, dipped it
into a puddle in front of the house and then fixed the rod with a drop of water
on a needle in front of the microscope. And then he saw the incredible! A whole
menagerie swarmed in a drop of dirty water: furry monsters, a sort of balls
surrounded by a crown of antennae, some flowers on the stems which were like
bells. And all these creatures moved, stirring their tails. It was a whole new
world, the existence of which was suspected by no one before Levenguk.
