Part III

SPECIAL THEMES
Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
The diffusion of a general knowledge and of a taste for science, over all
classes of men, in every nation of Europe, or of European origin, seems to be
the characteristic feature of the present age. So wrote James Keir (:;,,::c),
the pioneer industrial chemist, in the preface to his The First Part of a Dic-
tionary of Chemistry of :;,.
1
There can be no question that the study of the
material world then described as experimental natural philosophy seri-
ously impinged on the popular consciousness for the first time in the course
of the eighteenth century. This was achieved by means of a remarkable social
and educational phenomenon: the lecture demonstration.
Science today is understood to be the sphere of activity of the scientist,
a term that was first coined in the :,cs by William Whewell (:;,:oo),
author of The History of the Inductive Sciences. The coinage marks a transition
between the mainly amateur natural philosopher and the professional scien-
tist. This is not, of course, to say that science was not studied, and used pro-
fessionally, centuries earlier in Europe. What was missing in the classical Greek
approach to the natural world was the use of experiment. Ideas were tested
by reason alone, following the authority of Aristotle, which was broadly ac-
cepted throughout the Middle Ages. For example, Aristotle denied the pos-
sibility of a vacuum because he reasoned that bodies would move with infinite
velocity, a theory that could not then be checked by experiment.
With the Italian Renaissance of the fifteenth century came the impulse to
question traditional concepts and to put accepted ideas to the test. At the
same time the great voyages of discovery, and the worldwide expansion of
trade, required astronomers to address the practical problems of deep sea nav-
igation. They, and the navigators and surveyors who sailed to undiscovered
parts of the world and mapped them, were the earliest professional scientists,
and it was their need for instruments that gave a strong impetus to the craft
of the scientific instrument-maker. In turn, these skills were also put to use
,::
::
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY SCIENTIFIC
INSTRUMENTS AND THEIR MAKERS
G. L E. Turner
1
J. K. [James Keir], The First Part of a Dictionary of Chemistry &c (Birmingham, :;,), p. iii.
Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
by the experimental philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
who were engaged in a process of continuous inquiry into the operation of the
natural world.
The intellectual force behind experimental science was that of Francis Ba-
con (:,o::o:o), who, in his Novum Organum (:o:c), argued that scientific
truth must have its basis in the real world, for neither the naked hand nor
the understanding left to itself, can do much; the work is accomplished by
instruments and helps. Bacon enunciated the philosophy of ceaseless inquiry
into natural phenomena, constantly tested by experiment, and resulting in
practical benefit to the community. This was the basis of the activity of the
Royal Society of London, founded on : November :ooc, with the very Ba-
conian motto Nullius in Verba.
The founding of the Royal Society of London was anticipated by three
years in Italy, where the Medici court at Florence was remarkable for its pa-
tronage of learning, particularly the new natural philosophy. In :o,;, Prince
Leopold of Tuscany (:o:;:o;,) formed the Accademia del Cimento, where
organized experiments were carried out, an account of which has come down
to us under the title Saggi di Naturali Experienze fatte nell Accademia del Ci-
mento.
2
The society had, however, only a short life of ten years, being dis-
banded in :oo;. Much of its apparatus, however, survived, first in a museum
established in :;;, and later in the collection of the Museo di Storia della
Scienza in Florence.
3
In France, as in England, the origin of the Acadmie
royale des Sciences was in informal meetings of men of science that were given
official status in :ooo, when King Louis XIV granted pensions to the mem-
bers and provided a fund for the purpose of acquiring instruments and carry-
ing out experiments.
4
This, then, was the background to the emergence of experimental science
in the seventeenth century. The last decades of that century saw the new
science beginning to be taught in universities in both England and the Nether-
lands. Science chairs were established at Oxford and Cambridge Universities,
and both were influenced by original members of the Royal Society such
men as Isaac Newton, who held the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cam-
bridge; John Wallis, Savilian Professor of Geometry, Oxford; and Thomas
Millington, Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy, Oxford.
5
The vacuum
research of Robert Boyle (:o:;:o,:) at Oxford, assisted by Robert Hooke
(:o,o:;c,), who was Curator of Experiments to the Royal Society, attracted
international interest. It was after a visit to England in :o; that Burchardus
,:: G. L E. Turner
2
W. E. Knowles Middleton, The Experimenters: A Study of the Accademia del Cimento (Baltimore, MD:
Johns Hopkins University Press, :,;:).
3
Mara Miniati, Museo di Storia della Scienza: Catalogo (Florence: Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza,
:,,:), pp. :,:;.
4
Roger Hahn, The Anatomy of a Scientific Institution: The Paris Academy of Sciences, ::o, (Berkeley:
University of California Press, :,;:).
5
G. L E. Turner, The Physical Sciences, in L. S. Sutherland and L. G. Mitchell (eds.), The History
of the University of Oxford, V: The Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, :,o), pp. o,,:.
Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
de Volder (:o,:;c,), professor of physics at Leiden University, had a The-
atrum Physicum built, where he used an air-pump for class demonstrations.
6
John Desaguliers (:o,:;), who lectured at Oxford for two years before
setting up in London in :;:,, tells us, The first who publikly taught Natural
Philosophy by Experiments in a mathematical Manner in an English univer-
sity was John Keill (:o;::;::), who came from Edinburgh to Oxford in :o,.
7
He gave his course from :;cc to :;c,, when he left for New England, but he
was back in :;:: as the Savilian Professor of Astronomy. During this break,
lectures on experimental philosophy were given by Desaguliers. At Cam-
bridge University, similar lectures were being delivered from :;c; by William
Whiston (:oo;:;,:), Newtons successor as Lucasian Professor. Whiston was,
in fact, the father of the popular lecture demonstration; when he was dis-
missed from Cambridge in :;:c for heresy, he went to London to continue
his lecturing. He and his successors were able to place great emphasis on the
use of apparatus by cooperating with an instrument-maker. Whistons part-
nership with Francis Hauksbee senior (c. :ooo:;:,) was particularly signif-
icant, since Hauksbee was a Fellow of the Royal Society, had lectured on his
own account, and produced his lectures in published form under the title
Physico-Mechanical Experiments (:;c,), later translated into Italian, Dutch,
and French. Working as a team, however, Whiston lectured while Hauksbee
carried out the experiments, and Whiston published the illustrated text of his
series of lectures in :;:. Another notable lecture demonstrator in London at
the same time was John Theophilus Desaguliers whose career began in Ox-
ford, at Hart Hall, but who also moved to the capital and became well known
for his lectures, course books, and translations of French and Dutch scien-
tific texts.
A younger exponent of the lecture demonstration was Stephen Charles Tri-
boudet Demainbray (:;:c:;:), who provides a good example of the strong
links between England and Holland in the field of experimental philosophy.
He studied the subject under Willem s Gravesande at Leiden University be-
fore being appointed in :;, tutor to the Prince of Wales, later King George
III, and subsequently to the Kings children. His collection of demonstration
apparatus is now part of the King George III collection, newly displayed at
the Science Museum, London, in :,,,. Demainbray also lectured in Dublin
and traveled extensively in France, delivering his course in Toulouse, Mont-
pellier, Lyons, and Paris.
8
Willem Jacob s Gravesande (:o:;:) visited England as part of a state
deputation in :;:,, and there he met Newton, who helped him to an ap-
pointment as professor at Leiden University two years later. During his stay
Scientific Instruments and Their Makers ,:,
6
E. G. Ruestow, Physics at the :;th- and :th-Century Leiden (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, :,;,), pp. ,o.
7
Turner, Physical Sciences, pp. o;::.
8
A. Q. Morton and J. A. Wess, Public & Private Science: The King George III Collection (Oxford: Oxford
University Press and the Science Museum, :,,,). For the career of Demainbray, see chap. .
Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
in London, s Gravesande was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and had
the opportunity to attend the Hauksbee-Whiston demonstrations. He was
one of a group of notable teachers of science at Leiden, including Boerhaave
and Gobius, men who helped to make that University famous throughout
Europe. As was the case with William Whiston, s Gravesandes success as a
lecture demonstrator owed much to his collaboration with an instrument-
maker, Jan van Musschenbroek (:o;:;), whose father, Samuel, had made
the air-pump used by De Volder. s Gravesande, following the now familiar
pattern, published the text of his lectures, and the result was numerous or-
ders for instruments from Jan van Musschenbroek. Petrus (:o,::;o:), Jans
younger brother, studied under s Gravesande at Leiden University, took a
doctorate in :;:,, and eventually occupied the chair of natural philosophy
and mathematics at Utrecht University from :;:, to :;c, moving to a pro-
fessorship at Leiden University from the latter date until his death. He was
s Gravesandes successor, and his lecture notes, collected into ever larger
volumes, were widely used and were translated from Latin into all the main
European languages.
9
The art of the lecture demonstration reached its zenith in the cours de
physique of Jean-Antoine Nollet (:;cc:;;c), performed with some ,,c dif-
ferent instruments.
10
Nollet was a peasant boy whose village cur recognized
his intelligence and recommended him for the Church. He duly went to Paris
to study theology but instead devoted himself to science, joining in :;: the
Socit des Arts under the patronage of the Comte de Clermont. Through
this short-lived society, Nollet was able to meet members of the Acadmie
des Sciences, who helped his career. Also, perhaps even more significantly, he
met the mathematician Pierre Polinire (:o;::;,), a successful public lec-
turer on natural philosophy from whom Nollet inherited both an example
and an audience. Two leading academicians Charles-Franois Dufay (:o,
:;,,) and Ren-Antoine de Raumur (:o,:;,;) used Nollets assistance
in their scientific investigations and enabled him to visit both England and
Holland, where he met Desaguliers and s Gravesande.
11
On his return from
Holland in :;,,, Nollet decided to follow the career of scientific lecturer, and
he made, and trained workmen to make, the apparatus he needed (Figure ::.:).
Throughout much of his career he continued to supervise, on behalf of in-
dividual collectors and institutions, the making of pieces of demonstration
apparatus. His success as a lecturer was phenomenal, and the expanded syl-
labus of his lectures, Leons de Physique Experimentale, which appeared in six
,: G. L E. Turner
9
Peter de Clercq, At the Sign of the Oriental Lamp: The Musschenbroek Workshop in Leiden :o
:;,o (Rotterdam: Erasmus, :,,;); de Clercq, The Leiden Cabinet of Physics: A Descriptive Cata-
logue (Leiden: Museum Boerhaave, :,,;).
10
Ren Taton, Enseignement et diffusion des sciences en France au XVIII
e
sicle. Histoire de la pense XI
(Paris: Hermann, :,o), pp. o:,,.
11
John L. Heilbron, Nollet, Jean-Antoine, Dictionary of Scientific Biography, X, :,.
Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
volumes between :;, and :;, was equally successful and often reprinted
and translated. In :;,, he lectured before the royal family at Versailles and
later was offered the newly created chair of physics at the Collge de Navarre.
More than simply a popularizer of science, Nollet made a serious contribu-
tion to the study of electricity, but it is as the most skilled exponent of the
lecture demonstration that he is best remembered.
Nollet made his reputation lecturing to educated, and mainly aristocratic,
audiences. There is much evidence that the lecture demonstration, and its
domestic imitations, became the vogue in polite society. Sophie v. La Roche
(:;,::;,:), a German aristocrat and novelist, visited London in :;o and
recorded her travels in a diary. A typical entry ends, Our evening passed at
physical experiments, which most certainly form part of divine service, show-
ing us as they do the inner qualities of being, and so leading a sensitive soul
to increased and rational reverence for its Creator.
12
This view of experi-
mental philosophy as a means toward a deeper understanding of the majesty
of God is typical of the eighteenth century.
Scientific Instruments and Their Makers ,:,
12
Sophie in London :; being the Diary of Sophie v. la Roche. Translated from the German with an Intro-
ductory Essay by Clare Williams (London, :,,,), p. :,o.
Figure ::.:. An air pump made for Jean-Antoine Nollet (:;cc:;;c), the success-
ful French scientific lecturer and deviser of demonstation apparatus. The instrument
is decorated in the ornate, black-and-gold style that is typical of Nollet.
Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
From the middle years of the century, the lecture demonstration began to
reach a much wider spectrum of the population, certainly in the British Isles
and in Holland. One of the first lecturers in England to transport his appara-
tus by road in order to lecture in town after town was Benjamin Martin (:;c
:;:), who, from :;c, used Reading and Bath as centers from which he
made tours into the west country and as far north as Chester.
13
Adam Walker
(:;,::::) traveled the north of England, using Manchester as a base, and
had philosophic apparatus whose extent is shown by an advertisement in
the York Courant of :;;:. As well as astronomical apparatus and optical in-
struments, it included All the mechanical powers, with working Models of
various Cranes, Pumps, Water-Mills, Pile-Drivers, Engines, the Centrifugal
Machine, and a working Fire-Engine for draining Mines, of the latest con-
struction. Audiences for lecture demonstrations ranged from royalty and the
nobility to the most humble citizens. James Watt (:;,o::,), the pioneer of
steam power, came from an artisan background but had read s Gravesandes
lecture course before he was fifteen, and he later studied the works of De-
saguliers on the Savery and Newcomen model engines. The same was true of
many of the engineers and business entrepreneurs who laid the foundations
of the Industrial Revolution.
14
The teaching of science by this method became extensively institutionalized
as the century progressed, in universities, as might be expected, but also in
learned societies, which supplied adult education in science for the benefit
of citizens. Haarlem in the Netherlands provides a good example of such ac-
tivity. In :;;o, Martinus van Marum (:;,c:,;) was appointed by the town
council of Haarlem to lecture on philosophy and mathematics. Making use
of the collection of apparatus that he gradually amassed in the Teylers Museum,
he continued to give public lectures well into the nineteenth century.
15
Individuals, too, were inspired to acquire scientific instruments for their
own use by attending lecture demonstrations. Many of them, of course, were
aristocrats, and the extensive collections of some of them have found their way
into science museums. Other collections are known to us only from the sur-
viving auction catalogs, such as those of John Stuart (third Earl of Bute and
a close friend of George III)
16
and of the French aristocrat, Bonnier de la
Mosson (:;c::;). Bonnier was, like Nollet, a member of the Socit des
Arts, and he established in his Paris house, the Hotel du Lude, a remarkable
cabinet that embraced physics, mechanics, chemistry, pharmacy, and wood-,
,:o G. L E. Turner
13
John R. Millburn, Benjamin Martin: Author, Instrument-maker, and Country Showman (Leiden:
Noordhoff, :,;o).
14
A. E. Musson and E. Robinson, Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, :,o,).
15
G. L E. Turner and T. H. Levere, Martinus van Marum Life and Work, Volume IV: Van Marums Sci-
entific Instruments in Teylers Museum (Leiden: Noordhoff, :,;,).
16
G. L E. Turner, The Auction Sales of the Earl of Butes Instruments, :;,,, Annals of Science, :,
(:,o;), ::,:.
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ivory-, and metal-working equipment, as well as the more usual natural history
specimens. His house was later demolished and the collection dispersed, but a
set of architects drawings, dated :;,, and :;c, a contemporary description,
and a sale catalog, together with a painting of the cabinet that survived the
demolition, provide a unique record of what the collection included and how
it was arranged.
17
We also know that the purchase of instruments for the home
extended right through the social scale. Henry Baker, the best-selling author of
The Microscope Made Easy (:;:), whose house was in Fleet Street, London,
advised many friends living in the provinces on how to acquire optical instru-
ments. The microscope and telescope, the electrical machine, and the air-pump
gradually became sources of improving entertainment in many homes.
18
Our knowledge of what the experimental philosophy apparatus of the eigh-
teenth century consisted of, and how it was arranged, rests on more exact
and detailed evidence than pictorial or literary information. A number of
eighteenth-century cabinets of instruments have survived more or less intact
to the present day. These, as one would expect, contained the apparatus of
institutions set up for the purpose of teaching science but are otherwise var-
ied in the location and style. Perhaps the most comprehensive example, since
the majority of the instruments are still in their original cases in the splendid
Oval Room designed to house them (Figure ::.:), is Teylers Museum, Haar-
lem, the apparatus having been acquired, as already mentioned, by Martinus
van Marum. Van Marum bought extensively from auction sales, revealing
how many private collectors of instruments existed at that time. He also or-
dered instruments from leading makers in London and other European cen-
ters, building his collection over many years. What is exceptional about his
cabinet is that most of the documentation concerned with his purchases has
been preserved.
Another well-documented collection is that belonging to Harvard Univer-
sity in the United States. Harvard College received, in :;:;, the endowment
of the first scientific chair in America and the gift of five chests of philo-
sophical apparatus, which was housed in the Philosophy Chamber of the Old
Harvard Hall. All were destroyed in a disastrous fire in :;o. The then pro-
fessor of natural philosophy, John Winthrop (:;::;;,), was given the task
of rebuilding the collection of scientific instruments. He did this, buying
largely from London, notably from Benjamin Martin (who became a suc-
cessful instrument retailer after his career as lecture demonstrator),
19
over a
period of fifteen years. The Harvard cabinet was cataloged in this century
by David Wheatland,
20
who also acquired, and later sold to the David M.
Scientific Instruments and Their Makers ,:;
17
C. R. Hill, The Cabinet of Bonnier de la Mosson (:;c::;), Annals of Science, , (:,o), :;;.
18
G. L E. Turner, Henry Baker, F.R.S., Founder of the Bakerian Lecture, Notes and Records of the
Royal Society of London, :, (:,;), ,,;,.
19
Millburn, Benjamin Martin.
20
D. P. Wheatland, The Apparatus of Science at Harvard :;,:oo: Collection of Historical Scientific In-
struments, Harvard University (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, :,o).
Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
Stewart Museum in Montreal, Canada, twenty-three pieces of eighteenth-
century philosophical apparatus that had come originally from the Acadmie
de Dijon and are made to the design of Nollet.
Other cabinets of apparatus still in their original setting are to be found at
the Benedictine seminary housed in the magnificent baroque monastery of
Kremsmunster, Austria; and in the University of Coimbra, Portugal. The
latter collection owes its existence to the Marques de Pombal (:o,,:;:),
who, while ambassador to the Court of St. James between :;,, and :;,, had
ample opportunity to attend lecture demonstrations in London. In :;;:,
,: G. L E. Turner
Figure ::.:. The Oval Room in the Teyler Museum, Haarlem, the Netherlands.
The museum was founded by the will of the Haarlem silk merchant Pieter Teyler
van der Hulst (:;c::;;). The oval museum hall was built behind Teylers house
by Leendert Viervant and was completed in :;:, the first part of what was to
become a complex of buildings to house a scientific cabinet, mineralogical and pa-
leonological collections, and works of art. Copyright Teylers Museum, Haarlem,
The Netherlands.
Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
Pombal transferred to Coimbra University the professors, machines, and in-
struments of astronomy and experimental physics belonging to the Colegio
dos Nobres in Lisbon, in the charge of the professor at the Colegio, an Italian
from Padua, Giovanni Antonio della Bella. It was he who was largely respon-
sible for amassing the cabinet, following the usual practice of having some
pieces locally made and buying others from the London trade.
21
These, however, are only some of the cabinets that have remained virtually
intact. Characteristic of them is the arrangement of the instruments in cases
around the walls of a large room used for lecturing, each case often bearing
the name of the category of instrument it contains. The rooms and the style
of the instruments are appropriate to the period and of the prevailing style of
architecture. The instruments of the Nollet type are particularly recognizable
and have been described as finely finished in red and black vernis Martin,
decorated with gilding. The rooms at Kremsmunster are in the baroque style.
At Teylers Museum in Haarlem, the elegant Oval Room, virtually unchanged
from when it was first built, has arched, glass-fronted cases all around the
walls for the apparatus, with bookcases above to hold the library, accessible
from a gallery, and flat showcases through the center of the room, for min-
eralogical specimens.
All over Europe, however, there exist, already preserved in museums or even
now being discovered, examples of eighteenth-century philosophical appara-
tus that originated in universities, colleges, learned societies, or the collections
of individuals during the period appropriately named the Enlightenment.
The George III collection in the Science Museum, London, has already been
mentioned. The Deutsches Museum in Munich houses the collection of
the Bavarian Academy, much of it made by the great Augsburg instrument-
maker Georg Friedrich Brander (Figure ::.,).
22
There is a quantity of eigh-
teenth-century demonstration apparatus in the Museo di Storia della Scienza
in Florence. At the present time, all over Italy, scientific instruments used for
teaching are being discovered in universities and schools. In Denmark, there
was an interesting variation in the provenance of a cabinet. The apparatus
amassed for his personal use in the last decades of the eighteenth century by
Adam Wilhelm Hauch (:;,,:,), soldier, administrator, and amateur of
science, eventually found its way to Soroe Academy, an old-established school,
where it was used for science teaching.
23
The cabinets history has been stud-
ied, and the instruments restored, by a science teacher at the school in recent
years.
Scientific Instruments and Their Makers ,:,
21
G. L E. Turner, Apparatus of Science in the Eighteenth Century, Separata da Revista da Universi-
dade de Coimbra, , (:,;;).
22
Alto Brachner (ed.), G. F. Brander :;:,:;,: Wissenschaftliche Instrumente aus seiner Werkstatt (Mu-
nich: Deutsches Museum, :,,).
23
A. W. Hauch, Det Physiske Cabinet eller Beskrivelse over de til Experimental-Physiken henhrende vigtigste
instrumenter tilligmed brugen deraf, : vols. (Copenhagen, :,o, :,).
Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
,:c G. L E. Turner
Figure ::.,. The German instrument-maker Georg Friedrich Brander (:;:,:;,)
of Augsburg produced a wide range of instruments in his large workshop. Though
not an innovator, he was a fine craftsman, and many of his instruments survive in
museums, notably the Deutsches Museum in Munich, some of whose Brander pieces
are illustrated here. Courtesy of the Deutsches Museum.
Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
THE ROLE OF APPARATUS IN LECTURES
The lecture demonstration offered a new field of study for the educated and
a source of excitement and wonder for the curious similar to that provided
by fireworks displays. But there was a practical benefit from the lecture
demonstration. As David Brewster pointed out in the Preface to the second
edition of the Lectures of James Ferguson (:;:c:;;o), another highly suc-
cessful practitioner, We must attribute [to itinerant lecturers] the general
diffusion of scientific knowledge among the practical mechanics of this
country, which has, in great measure, banished those antiquated prejudices,
and erroneous maxims of construction, that perpetually mislead the unlettered
artist [artisan].
24
The lecture demonstration proved beyond all question
that the best way to teach science to those with no, or little, basic knowledge
of it is by showing how it works.
What, then, were the topics dealt with in these lecture demonstration
courses? They remained remarkably consistent throughout the eighteenth cen-
tury, comprising mechanics, magnetism, astronomy, hydrostatics, pneumatics,
heat, optics, electricity, and chemistry. Mechanics included the classical ma-
chines levers, pulleys, balances and some large set-pieces to show the par-
allelogram of forces, the rebound and trajectory of balls, cycloidal motion, and
centrifugal forces. Some practitioners developed composite pieces of apparatus
for ease of display, a good example of which is s Gravesandes table of forces,
to show the equilibrium of bodies. Also included under mechanics would
often be models of practical devices that operate under the laws of mechanics
for example, the capstan, crane, pile driver, and varieties of mill. Magnetism
was a popular wonder, and lodestones were held to possess magical properties,
so examples of different types of magnets would be included, as well as the prac-
tical employment of magnetic attraction in the compass. If astronomy were
included in the course, globes would be used, as would the astronomical tele-
scope as well as, certainly in the latter part of the century, mechanical devices
for displaying the movements of the heavenly bodies, such as the planetarium.
Hydrostatics and hydraulics attracted much practical attention in the
eighteenth century because of the taste for fountains and elaborate garden
designs using water. Demonstration pieces here would include the classical
Heros fountain, specific gravity experiments, suction and force pumps, and
capillary attraction. The air-pump was one of the best known of all eighteenth-
century demonstration instruments and would be used in the lecture on
pneumatics, with many accessories for showing the effects it could produce.
The effects of heat would be shown in measuring devices such as the ther-
mometer and hygrometer and in instruments revealing the power of steam,
notably the engine devised by Newcomen.
Scientific Instruments and Their Makers ,::
24
John R. Millburn, Wheelwright of the Heavens: The Life & Work of James Ferguson, F.R.S. (London: Vade-
Mecum Press, :,). For the printing history of Lectures on Select Subjects, see pp. :,;.
Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
Optical instruments became the most popular instruments of the century
for use in the home, few of which did not have a microscope or a telescope,
to reveal the worlds of the very small and the very distant. Also for demon-
stration at an optics lecture would be distorting mirrors, prisms, and lenses.
The eighteenth century was the age of static electricity, and the electrical ma-
chine equaled the air-pump and the microscope for popularity. Martinus van
Marum had built in Teylers Museum a giant electrostatic generator, with
glass disks five feet six inches in diameter, but the main market was for small,
portable machines. Chemical experiments were concerned mostly with the
combustion of oils, phosphorus, and carbon and the oxidation of mercury.
The lecturers of the eighteenth century laid down a remarkably consistent
pattern of design in demonstration apparatus that lasted through two and a
half centuries. This is most obvious in mechanics, a study that goes back to
classical times, but it is also clear in hydrostatics, hydraulics, and pneumatics,
and is present, if not so extensive, in optics. Virtually all the demonstrations
in mechanics used by Whiston at the premises of Francis Hauksbee in :;:,
which are illustrated in six engraved plates in his Course, can be identified in
the pages of the Catalogue of Scientific Apparatus issued by J. J. Griffin and
Sons Ltd. in :,::. The same designs, although modernized and later made in
plastic, appear in school textbooks of the :,ocs and in educational toy cata-
logs today. From the predominantly middle-aged audience of the eighteenth
century, through the undergraduates of the nineteenth century and the sec-
ondary school pupils of the twentieth century, the process of teaching the
basic elements of science by demonstration is now continuing in primary
schools and in the playroom.
What occurred in Europe during the eighteenth century was, quite sim-
ply, an outburst of interest in the working of the natural world, as revealed
by means of experimental apparatus. One of Abb Nollets successful publi-
cations was a three-volume work titled LArt des Experiences, ou Avis aux Am-
ateurs de la physique, sur le Choix, la Construction, et LUsage des Instruments.
This is a practical guide on choosing, making, and acquiring apparatus for
the uninitiated. The collections of instruments of experimental philosophy
that have survived from the eighteenth century represent only a tithe of the
huge quantity of such apparatus sold to private owners and institutions and
constantly exchanged between individuals and at auction sales. This was the
immediate effect of the immensely popular lecture demonstration. Its long-
term legacy was to lay the foundations of the Industrial Revolution of the
nineteenth century and of our own science-dominated age.
INSTRUMENTS IN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
This is not to suggest, however, that serious scientific research was lacking in
the eighteenth century. Henry Baker (:o,:;;) not only wrote popular books
,:: G. L E. Turner
Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
on the microscope but also read papers on microscopy to the Royal Society
and received its Copley Medal for his work on the morphology of crystals.
25
Jean Andr de Luc (:;:;::;), a Swiss who became tutor to the British royal
family, contributed to meteorology, and Benjamin Wilson (:;:::;) studied
static electricity, demonstrating at the Pantheon in London before King
George III and arguing publicly with Benjamin Franklin on the subject of
lightning conductors. This was essentially empirical research, but its impor-
tance should not be underestimated. The studies of Wilson, and many others,
on static electricity gave rise to galvanic electricity, the voltaic electric pile,
and the experiments with current electricity eagerly taken up from :cc on-
ward. Another example of far-reaching empiricism was the development by
John Dollond (:;co:;o:) of achromatic lens systems for the telescope. Tech-
nical difficulties and the lack of any theory about the formation of the opti-
cal image prevented his son, Peter Dollond, from extending the telescopic
breakthrough to the microscope, but Dollonds achievement, together with
the popular interest in microscopy, certainly accelerated improvements to the
performance of objective lenses.
The patenting in :;, of Dollonds achromatic lens combinations for the
telescope was of particular importance because in the eighteenth century,
positional astronomy had state patronage, which was spurred by the urgent
economic need to improve ocean navigation. Prize money was on offer to
anyone who could solve the problem of finding the longitude on board ship
when out of sight of land; this feat was finally achieved by John Harrison
with his portable marine chronometer, of :;o:. State observatories had been
built in England and France during the seventeenth century (Figure ::.),
and in the next century, astronomical activity across Europe and in North
America was stimulated by the transits of the planet Venus across the Sun in
:;o: and :;o,. The improved accuracy of instruments made it possible to
calculate the measure of the solar system from this phenomenon. At Harvard
College, John Winthrop organized an expedition to observe the transit in
Newfoundland in :;o:, and Captain Cook led an expedition to the Southern
hemisphere in :;o,. The Russian Imperial Academy ordered a range of in-
struments from London makers in :;o.
Equipping the many observing stations was a task that fell largely upon
the London precision instrument trade. In a study of the eighteenth-century
transits, Professor Harry Woolf listed the observing stations and, whenever
possible, the telescopes used.
26
At the :;o: Transit, he records thirty-seven
reflectors, three achromats, and sixty-seven unspecified; for the :;o, Transit,
forty-nine reflectors, twenty-two achromats, and fifty-seven unspecified. To
judge from the focal lengths given, most of those unspecified were refractors,
Scientific Instruments and Their Makers ,:,
25
Turner, Henry Baker, p. o,.
26
Harry Woolf, The Transits of Venus: A Study of Eighteenth-Century Science (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, :,,,).
Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
probably nonachromatic. For achromatic refracting telescopes, Peter Dollond,
inheriting his fathers patent, was the prime supplier. For reflectors, which
use polished metal mirrors rather than lenses, James Short (:;:c:;o), who
described himself in trade directories as an Optician Solely for Reflecting
Telescopes, was the supplier chosen by many astronomers, to judge from the
numbers of :-inch and :-inch telescopes he made in the :;ocs. Short gave
,: G. L E. Turner
Figure ::.. The observers room of the Radcliffe Observatory, Oxford, illustrated
in Ackermanns History of Oxford. In :;o,, Thomas Hornsby (:;,,::c) succeeded
the great astronomer James Bradley as Savilian Professor of Astronomy and was con-
cerned that the University had no observatory. He petitioned the Radcliffe trustees
for funds to build and equip an observatory, his proposals were accepted, and
building began in :;;,. The unusual design, modeled on the Tower of the Winds
in Athens, was by James Wyatt, but the work was carried out by Henry Keene.
The astronomical instruments were supplied in :;; by John Bird. Those shown
here are now in the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, with the excep-
tion of the :c-ft Herschel reflector. Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.
Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
each instrument he made a serial number, and this has made it possible to
put a figure on his production: :,,;c over thirty-five years.
27
Unlike the telescope, the microscope was used throughout the eighteenth
century largely for recreational purposes because of the aberrations that marred
the image. The quality of glass available, the small size of the lenses needed, and
the difficulty of identifying and communicating what was seen were factors that
limited the instruments scientific performance. It was not until the nineteenth
century that the microscope achieved its full potential, following the work on
lens systems of Joseph Jackson Lister. Nevertheless, the microscope was hugely
popular. Simple microscopes for field use by naturalists, and compound
models, their stands improved by the use of brass, for home observation, were
made and sold in large numbers. What serious work was done was mainly in
the fields of mineralogy, classification of plants and insects, and zoology.
The study of chemistry, as of natural philosophy, received an important
impetus from the University of Leiden, where Herman Boerhaave (:oo:;,)
taught medical students in a course that included the preparation of drugs
in a laboratory. Throughout the eighteenth century, there was much preoc-
cupation with gases, the nature of air, and the processes of combustion and
oxidation. The century produced great chemists, Joseph Black (:;::;,,)
and Antoine Lavoisier (:;,:;,), to name only two. The apparatus used
by chemists for their research was, however, simpler and, being generally
made of glass, less permanent than that used by physicists. Some chemical
apparatus used for teaching has survived in, for example, the Teyler Museum
and the Playfair Collection in the National Museums of Scotland,
28
but pre-
nineteenth-century apparatus is rare and was generally made not by instrument-
makers but by glass-making firms or mechanics attached to the laboratory. The
exception is the chemical balance, which came into its own in the eighteenth
century. Joseph Black, at Glasgow and then at Edinburgh, first carried out
reasoned sets of chemical experiments in which the balance was used at every
stage.
29
Lavoisier, in Paris, also stressed the importance of quantitative studies
and the need for sensitive balances in the laboratory. These balances were
made by the instrument-makers whom we shall be considering.
METHODS, MATERIALS, AND MAKERS
Scientific instrument-making developed from the art of engraving the metal
plates used for printing. This manual skill was supplemented by a good measure
Scientific Instruments and Their Makers ,:,
27
G. L E. Turner, James Short, F.R.S., and his Contribution to the Construction of Reflecting Tele-
scopes, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, : (:,o,), ,::c.
28
R. G. W. Anderson, The Playfair Collection and the Teaching of Chemistry at the University of Edin-
burgh :;:,:, (Edinburgh: National Museums of Scotland, :,;).
29
On Joseph Black, see Anderson, Playfair Collection, chap. :, which has extensive notes. For an in-
troduction to the balance, see John T. Stock, Development of the Chemical Balance (London: HMSO
for the Science Museum, :,o,).
Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
of mathematical knowledge, and the two came together in Flanders in the
sixteenth century, where they were notably practiced by the great mapmaker
Gerard Mercator. A contemporary of Mercator left Louvain to settle in Lon-
don, where he called himself Thomas Gemini. He made his name by engrav-
ing the plates for a fine edition of the classic work of Vesalius, whose De hu-
mani corporis fabrica was published at Basle in :,,. For this work, Gemini
received a pension from Henry VIII, and he also engraved maps and made
mathematical instruments. Gemini was the first among a group of instrument-
makers who flourished in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.
30
Many of these
makers, employed in what was a new craft, found their place in the London
guild structure by becoming free of the Grocers Company, one of the Twelve
Great Livery Companies.
31
By this means several master/apprentice dynasties
were established that continued through the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries and into the nineteenth.
32
Many of the makers referred to later,
including Thomas Heath, the Adams family over three generations, and the
Troughtons, were free of the Grocers Company.
A leading London maker who spanned the turn of the seventeenth and eigh-
teenth centuries was Edmund Culpeper (:ooc:;,).
33
Culpeper was appren-
ticed to Walter Hayes, whose premises in Moorfields he took over just before
:;cc. A range of objects is still to be found bearing his signature Edmund
Culpeper Fecit and among the more unusual are an engraved design for a
dessert trencher and a memorial brass. His conventional products still extant
in museums include rules, sectors, sundials, backstaffs, and surveying instru-
ments. Culpeper began making small pocket microscopes about :;cc, judging
from a dated example, and many of these so-called Wilson screw-barrel micro-
scopes have Culpepers name engraved on them. Another type of microscope,
a large tripod form customarily referred to as the Culpeper type, is thought
to have been first produced in :;:,. The attribution rests on the trade card,
bearing Culpepers sign of the crossed daggers, and his name as the engraver
of the printing plate. It is possible that Culpeper decided to extend the range
of articles that he sold and so took on first the Wilson-type microscopes that
are made of turned ivory or brass and whose stands involve flat, folding feet
constructed in the manner of rules or sectors. It is more likely, however, that
Culpeper bought from other specialist tradesmen the large tripod microscopes
that do not depend on any delicate workmanship apart from the lenses.
,:o G. L E. Turner
30
G. L E. Turner, Elizabethan Instrument Makers: The Origins of the London Trade in Precision Instrument
Making (Oxford: Oxford University Press, :ccc).
31
J. Brown, Mathematical Instrument-Makers in the Grocers Company ::oo (London: Science Mu-
seum, :,;,).
32
Gloria Clifton, Directory of British Scientific Instrument Makers :,,o:,: (London: Philip Wilson, :,,,).
See also D. J. Bryden, Scottish Instrument Makers :oo:)oo (Edinburgh: National Museums of Scot-
land, :,;,).
33
G. L E. Turner, Micrographia Historica: The Study of the History of the Microscope, Proceedings
of the Royal Microscopical Society, ; (:,;:), ::c,. Reprinted in G. L E. Turner, Essays on the History
of the Microscope (Oxford: Senecio Publishing, :,c).
Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
Another craftsman who chose to diversify was George Lindsay (fl. :;:
:;;o) of the Strand, who was a watchmaker to King George III. Lindsay is-
sued a proposal for a portable microscope in :;: and patented it in :;,. It
was said of him that he employed all the skill of the watchmaking trade to
produce a microscope that would pack away into the space of a snuffbox.
At around the time of Culpepers death in :;,, wood and leather became
old-fashioned, and brass was increasingly used to make the bodies and stands
of microscopes and telescopes and the frames of octants. Under the guidance
of Henry Baker, John Cuff (:;c:;;:) made, in about :;,, a radical change
in the design of the microscope, using an all-brass construction except for the
wooden box foot.
34
It was said of Cuff that he was one of the best workmen
of his trade in London and could make a microscope in two weeks. Never-
theless, by :;,c he had become bankrupt. Some said it was because he was
too honest, whereas others said that he was too slow in producing the goods
ordered.
The London instrument-making trade was, by :;cc, a complex interlock-
ing of specialist makers and retailers. A shopkeeper would sell his own prod-
ucts and would accommodate his customers by providing a comprehensive
stock drawn from the rest of London. There were some who made only for the
trade, such as Jack Dunnell (fl. :oc) who made vellum tubes for telescopes
and microscopes, and John Morgan (fl. :;c), a brass worker. Others were
only retailers, a leading eighteenth-century example being Benjamin Martin,
whose early lecturing activity has already been referred to and who later ran
a successful business in London selling scientific instruments of all kinds. In
:;o his shop in Fleet Street was visited by Jean Bernouilli, a Swiss-born as-
tronomer from the Royal Observatory in Berlin. He described in his Lettres
astronomiques, published in :;;:, his travels to Germany, France and England,
and he considered that Martins shop was one of the best equipped and notable
for the lecture demonstrations given there by Martin.
35
The catalog of the auc-
tion sale of Martins effects after his death in :;: shows the comprehensive
range of instruments he sold: spectacles, opera glasses, optical toys, telescopes,
microscopes, instruments for surveying and navigation, sundials, drawing
instruments, air-pumps, electrical machines, planetaria, clocks, barometers,
thermometers, gunners gauges, and so on. The range of his stock and his ef-
ficient publicity make it unsurprising that he was chosen to supply Harvard
College with replacement teaching apparatus after the fire of :;o.
Benjamin Martin went bankrupt in his later years, possibly through over-
diversification. James Short, a Scot who confined himself to making reflect-
ing telescopes with consummate skill, died worth a fortune. He concentrated
on the careful polishing and matching of the speculum metal mirrors of the
Scientific Instruments and Their Makers ,:;
34
Turner, Henry Baker, pp. o,.
35
Jean Bernouilli, Lettres Astronomiques o lon donne une ide de ltat actuel de lastronomie practique
dans plusieurs villes de lEurope (Berlin, :;;:), pp. ;:.
Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
telescopes, and the excellence of his instruments led to his election to Fel-
lowship of the Royal Society at the age of twenty-six and to his being a can-
didate for the office of Astronomer Royal in :;o. Short died a few months
before Bernouilli arrived in London, but the latter attended the auction sale
of Shorts stock, to which he devoted an entire letter. It is interesting to note
that Short asked, and had no difficulty in getting, more than twice the usual
price for his telescopes. For a :-inch reflector with rackwork, Martin asked
fourteen guineas, Henry Pyefinch sixteen guineas, George Adams twenty
guineas, and Short thirty-five guineas.
36
With such a range of quality sup-
pliers, it is not surprising that London was the worlds marketplace for pre-
cision instruments.
Bernouilli, an astronomer, was specially interested in the mural quadrants
and sectors made by the specialists, Graham and Bird. George Graham, who
had a workshop in Fleet Street from :;:, until his death in :;,:, was origi-
nally a clockmaker and had been trained by the great Thomas Tompion. Gra-
ham turned his skill to astronomical and observatory instruments, doing much
to improve their accuracy.
37
He is known to have sold transit and zenith
instruments and astronomical clocks. He was made a Fellow of the Royal
Society in :;:c. John Bird, a younger man, worked with both Graham and
Jonathan Sisson and made the first dividing engine to allow for variations
caused by changes of temperature. Bird supplied instruments to the Royal
Greenwich Observatory and other observatories across Europe
38
and worked
for the Board of Longitude. Sisson, too, was singled out for mention by Ber-
nouilli, as was Jesse Ramsden. Born in :;,,, Ramsden was a leading London
instrument-maker and retailer throughout the second half of the eighteenth
century, with premises in Piccadilly. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society
in :;o and was an author and inventor as well as a businessman. He had
close links with other instrument-makers and was married to Sarah, sister of
Peter Dollond.
Other European scholars kept diaries of their travels and included descrip-
tions of visits to London instrument-makers.
39
Marc Auguste Pictet, profes-
sor of experimental philosophy at Geneva, visited London in :c: and wrote
enthusiastically of the excellence of the dividing engine and other instruments
by Edward Troughton FRS (:;,,:,,).
40
Here we meet another instrument-
making family, for Edward and his brother, John, were trained by their
uncle, also John Troughton (:;:o:;), and were in business together until
,: G. L E. Turner
36
Turner, James Short, p. :c:.
37
J. A. Bennett, The Divided Circle: A History of Instruments for Astronomy, Navigation, and Survey-
ing (Oxford: Phaidon-Christies, :,;). See chap. ; on observatories.
38
V. L. Chenakal, The Astronomical Instruments of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries in the
Museums of the U.S.S.R., Vistas in Astronomy, , (:,o), ,,;;.
39
G. L E. Turner, The London Trade in Scientific Instrument-Making in the Eighteenth Century,
Vistas in Astronomy, :c (:,;o), :;,:.
40
Marc Auguste Pictet, Voyage de trois mois en Angleterre, en Ecosse, et en Irlande pendant lEt de lan IX
(:o: v. st.) (Geneva, :c:).
Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
:c.
41
Edward continued the firm after his brothers retirement, and the firm
of Troughton & Simms operated throughout the nineteenth century and well
into the twentieth century as Cooke, Troughton & Simms. The Danish as-
tronomer Thomas Bugge visited London in :;;; and kept a diary illustrated
with his own drawings.
42
He bought instruments costing more than from
the firm of Nairne & Blunt. Edward Nairne (:;:o:co) had premises in
Cornhill from :;, that he took over from Matthew Loft, and he numbered
Jesse Ramsden among his workmen. Nairne received his FRS in :;;o and a
royal appointment to King George III in :;,, and he was in partnership with
Thomas Blunt between :;; and :;,,. Nairne & Blunt advertised the full
range of scientific instruments and described themselves as Optical, Math-
ematical and Philosophical Instrument Makers.
One other London instrument-making family must be mentioned, as in-
deed they are by the traveling diarists: the Adamses.
43
George Adams the elder
was born in :;c,, learned his craft as apprentice to Thomas Heath, and ran a
well-known business at the sign of Tycho Brahes Head in Fleet Street. Adams
knew all about the advantages of advertising by writing and lecturing and
was particularly well known for his globes, although he sold the full range of
instruments. He was succeeded by his elder son, also George, who lived only
until the age of ,; the younger son, Dudley, took over, and he continued the
highly successful business until ::; (Figure ::.,). George Adams Jr., who
succeeded to his fathers royal appointment, supplied many instruments to the
Dutchman Martinus van Marum, who was engaged, during the final decades
of the eighteenth century, in building an extensive collection of instruments
for teaching and research at the Teylers Foundation in Haarlem.
It becomes clear from this brief account of only some of the leading Lon-
don instrument-makers of the eighteenth century that these were men of
intelligence and education, capable of writing about their work, and willing
and able to innovate. They were recognized as distinguished members of the
scientific community and of society in general. The enthusiasm with which
European visitors to London described the shops, the range and quality of
the instruments, and the knowledge and ability of their owners confirms this
assessment. It may well have been the case, however, that in the second half of
the century, London was so well supplied with precision instrument-makers
that a young man at the end of his apprenticeship might look abroad for busi-
ness opportunities. One man who trained in London but decided to emi-
grate to Amsterdam was John Cuthbertson (:;,:::).
44
The move brought
Scientific Instruments and Their Makers ,:,
41
A. W. Skempton and J. Brown, John and Edward Troughton, Mathematical Instrument Makers,
Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, :; (:,;,), :,,o:.
42
Thomas Bugge, travel diary AugustDecember :;;; (Copenhagen, Kongelige Bibliotek, MS Ny kgl.
Saml. ,;;e).
43
John R. Millburn, Adams of Fleet Street, Instrument Makers to King George III (Aldershot: Ashgate,
:ccc).
44
W. D. Hackmann, John and Jonathan Cuthbertson: The Invention and Development of the Eighteenth-
Century Plate Electrical Machine (Leiden: Museum Boerhaave, :,;,).
Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
success, for he was considered to be the best maker of electrical machines and
air pumps in Europe. He made the largest of all plate electrical machines: that
in the Teyler Museum in Haarlem. Much of his business depended on the
patronage of the Teyler Foundation, and following a disagreement about the
design of friction pads for electrical machines with his patron, Van Marum,
,,c G. L E. Turner
Figure ::.,. A trade card of Dudley Adams (:;o::,c), younger son of George
Adams Senior, who took over the family business at the premises at Tycho Brahes
Head in Fleet Street, London, on the early death of this elder brother, George, in
:;,,. Science Museum/Science & Society Picture Library.
Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
Cuthbertson returned to London in :;,, and opened a shop there. His brother,
Jonathan, also started an instrument-making business in Holland, at Rotter-
dam, and never returned to England.
THE INSTRUMENT TRADE IN
EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA
To break into the London instrument trade if one were a foreigner and lacked
local backing was not easy. Jacob Bernhard Haas (:;,,::) was born at Bib-
erach, in southern Germany, became a skilled instrument-maker, and settled
in London. He found needed capital and someone willing to help him in the
person of Johann Heinrich Hurter, a Swiss painter who achieved success at
the English court, and the two men established what was described as a man-
ufactory of philosophical instruments. Haas made several pieces, including
a fine chemical balance, for Van Marum, and for three years, from :;,, to
:;,,, was in formal partnership with Hurter, signing his instruments with
both names. In :;,:, Haas tried unsuccessfully to obtain the post of mechanic
to the Teyler Foundation, explaining in his letter how difficult it was to suc-
ceed in London. He finally went to work in Lisbon as head of the instrument-
making workshop of the Portuguese Admiralty.
Holland was a center for instrument-making second only to London,
45
due
in considerable measure to the influence of Leiden University, where lectures
in experimental philosophy were established from :o;,. The instrument-
maker who supplied much of the apparatus for these lectures was Jan van
Musschenbroek (:o;:;); the Musschenbroek workshop has been studied
in detail by Peter de Clercq.
46
The business, at the sign of the Oriental Lamp,
was established in the Rapenburg, Leidens great university street, by Jans
uncle, Samuel, in the :oocs. It was continued by Johan van Musschenbroek,
Samuels younger brother, and then by Johans son of the same name, gener-
ally known as Jan. Although the Musschenbroeks had a reputation for the high
quality of their instruments, there is no evidence that their workshop was a
large one. Indeed, apart from the family, only one man seems to have been
employed. This was Anthony Rinssen, who, when he set up his own business,
advertised that he had been Jans assistant for twenty years. This concentra-
tion on a bespoke (custom) trade by a single skilled craftsman, with few
assistants, was the norm in the first half of the eighteenth century, but that
changed after :;,c, when the great London instrument firms, and also those
in Germany and France, employed many skilled artisans, sometimes as many
Scientific Instruments and Their Makers ,,:
45
For a preliminary listing, see Maria Rooseboom, Bijdrage tot de Geschiedenis der Instrumentmakerskunst
in de noordelijke Nederlanded tot omstreeks :,o (Leiden: Rijksmuseum voor de Geschiedenis der
Natuurwetenschappen, :,,c).
46
de Clercq, At the Sign of the Oriental Lamp.
Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
as fifty. Jan Paauw (c. :;:,:c,), also of Leiden, was among the instrument
makers whom Thomas Bugge met on his tour of :;;;, when he visited Hol-
land as well as England. Paauw was a graduate of Leiden University and took
the degree of doctor of philosophy at the University of Franeker. In the sec-
ond half of the eighteenth century there were few Dutch collections of sci-
entific instruments, public or private, that did not contain apparatus from
his workshop. In Amsterdam, Bugge met the instrument-makers Adam Steitz
and Jan van Deijl, the latter certainly because of his reputation as a maker of
optical instruments. Jan and his son, Harmanus van Deijl (:;,:c,), were
in business together, and Harmanus is credited with being the first to pro-
duce commercially an achromatic microscope, which was described in :c;.
47
The instrument followed the conventional pattern of the day and had two sizes
of objective with focal lengths of :c and ,cmm. They were composed of a
plano-convex flint-glass lens and a bi-convex crown-glass lens; the plane
surface of the first turned toward the object to be viewed. The achievement
was in making the required lenses in a size small enough for use in the micro-
scope. Another notable Dutch instrument-making family, which existed
through three generations was that of Jan van der Bildt (:;c,:;,:) of Franeker.
Van der Bilt lived and worked there all his life, achieving a reputation for the
construction of telescopes.
Germany did not become a united national state until the end of the nine-
teenth century. The numerous separate principalities in the eighteenth cen-
tury did not create the political, economic, and social conditions for many
precision instrument workshops to flourish. Of those that did exist, the most
notable was that of Georg Friedrich Brander (:;:,:;,) of Augsburg.
48
Born
in Regensburg, Brander studied mathematics at the University of Altdorf and
in :;,; founded his workshop, which produced every type of philosophical,
mathematical, and optical instrument. His inventive skill was in the construc-
tion of glass micrometers for use in microscopy and astronomy, for which he
designed his own ruling machine, starting production in :;o:. The design of
his microscopes was, however, much influenced by those of the London
makers, and his interest in microscopes was stimulated by the publication in
German of Henry Bakers book Employment for the Microscope, in :;,,. Bran-
der supplied many of the instruments for the Bavarian Academy, now housed
in the Deutsches Museum in Munich. Another notable German instrument-
maker of the eighteenth century was Johann Christian Breithaupt (:;,o
:;,,), of Kassel.
49
In Vienna, a successful business was established by Johann
Christoph Voigtlander (:;,::;,;). German instrument-making produced
its genius in the person of Joseph von Fraunhofer (:;;::o), whose inno-
,,: G. L E. Turner
47
Turner and Levere, Van Marum, pp. ,c::.
48
Brachner, Brander.
49
L. von Mackensen, Feinmechanik aus Kassel: ::, Jahre F.W. Breithaupt & Sohn, Festschrift und Ausstel-
lungsbegleiter (Kassel: Georg Wenderoth Verlag, :,;).
Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
vations in glass production made possible the German triumphs with optical
instruments during the nineteenth century.
50
In France, too, the economic and social climate was less favorable than in
England to innovation in precision instrument-making until the last decades
of the eighteenth century.
51
There were, however, some notable makers. Jacques
and Pierre Lemaire, father and son, were active from :;:c to :;;c, making a
variety of mathematical and navigational instruments. The most important
workshop of this period was that of Claude Langlois, who was in business from
:;,c. He became engineer to the Acadmie des sciences and had premises in
the Louvre. He made instruments for the Paris Observatory, including two
six-foot mural quadrants, and quadrants and sectors for expeditions to Peru
and Lapland. Langloiss business after his death was taken over by his nephew,
Canivet, who continued to make astronomical instruments of high quality.
In the middle of the century, optical instruments were made in France that
were remarkable for their fine and elaborate workmanship, but they were not
innovative; they have been described as salon pieces. The best-known
makers were Claude Paris, who produced reflecting telescopes like those of
the London maker, Scarlett; and Claude Simon Passemant (:;c::;o,), an
astute self-publicist and a fine craftsman. Passemant adopted John Cuff s
design for the compound microscope but produced many variants.
In the last quarter of the eighteenth century, a determined effort was made
to promote French science, and two important workshops emerged: those of
Lenoir and Fortin. Etienne Lenoir (:;:,:) established a reputation as the
best maker of navigational and observatory instruments.
52
He made the pro-
totype Borda reflecting circle, and his instruments were used to measure the
meridian. Throughout the Revolution and into the empire, Citizen Lenoir
presided over the most important precision instrument workshop in Paris
and was able to pass it on to his son in the new century. Nicolas Fortin
(:;,c:,:) made his reputation as instrument-maker to Lavoisier, for whom
he made balances, thermometers, and apparatus for oil combustion. He also
worked for Gay-Lussac, and the jury of the ::, Paris Exhibition commented,
Devoting his energies especially to the construction of physical instruments,
Fortin, by his talent, made possible the work of the French physicists which
has revolutionized the science of physics and created modern chemistry. For-
tins name is generally associated today with the type of barometer that he
invented.
Scientific Instruments and Their Makers ,,,
50
Alto Brachner, Mit den Wellen des Lichts: Ursprnge und Entwicklung der Optik im sddeutschen
Raum (Munich: Olzog Verlag, :,;).
51
Maurice Daumas, Les instruments scientifiques aux XVII
e
et XVIII
e
sicles (Paris: Presses universitaires
de France, :,,,. English translation by Mary Holbrook, London: Batsford, :,;:).
52
A. J. Turner, From Pleasure and Profit to Science and Security: Etienne Lenoir and the Transformation
of Precision Instrument-Making in France :;o:,o (Cambridge, MA: Whipple Museum of the His-
tory of Science, :,,).
Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
Although the vast majority of scientific apparatus used for experiment and
teaching in the American colonies during the eighteenth century was imported
from Europe the re-equipping of Harvard College by Benjamin Martin has
been referred to mathematical instruments for the practical purposes of sur-
veying and navigation were being produced by American makers. Because it
was readily available, many of the surveying instruments were made of
wood, and not of brass as they would have been in Europe at the time. There
were some immigrant makers, such as John Dabney, who came to Boston
from London, and Anthony Lamb, also apprenticed in London, who settled
in New York.
53
But it was not until the nineteenth century that a flood of
immigrants from Europe came to the United States in search of business
opportunity.
54
Two of the most important mathematical practitioners in North America
were the Rittenhouse brothers of Philadelphia: David (:;,::;,o) and Ben-
jamin (:;cc. ::c). David Rittenhouse used instruments of his own design
and construction to survey the boundary between Pennsylvania and Delaware
in :;o,, and in :;;c he built and equipped the first American astronomical
observatory in Philadelphia. Benjamin was superintendent of the govern-
ments gunlock factory and made clocks and surveying instruments. Another
notable surveyor and maker of surveying instruments was Andrew Ellicott
(:;,::c), who, in :c:, was offered the position of Surveyor General of
the United States by President Jefferson. Ellicott employed as his assistant
in survey work Benjamin Banneker (:;,:co), a free Negro who was self-
educated and achieved fame as the producer of astronomical almanacs. Other
notable American instrument-makers were James Wilson of Vermont, the first
native globe maker, and Joseph Pope of Boston, who constructed a superb
orrery for Harvard University.
A SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATION
Because science was popularized for the first time in the eighteenth century
and because for some people it was a source of entertainment, it is often as-
sumed that little serious scientific work was done. This was not the case. The
popularization was part of a general educational process. People seek educa-
tion for a variety of reasons that include curiosity and distraction as well as
the serious desire to learn. It must also be remembered that the gulf between
amateur and professional did not then exist as it does today. Many of those
who were interested in natural philosophy a more contemporary term than
,, G. L E. Turner
53
Silvio A. Bedini, At the Sign of the Compass and Quadrant: The Life and Times of Anthony Lamb, Trans-
actions of the American Philosophical Society, ;, pt. : (:,).
54
Silvio A. Bedini, Early American Scientific Instruments and Their Makers, United States National
Museum Bulletin :,: (Washington, DC, :,o. Reprinted, with addenda to Bibliography, Rancho
Cordova, CA: Landmark Enterprises, :,o).
Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
science did not earn their livelihood by its study, so it is assumed that
they were unlikely to produce a serious addition to knowledge. Scientific
knowledge grew during the century, and the foundations were laid for the
huge technological advances of the Industrial Revolution. The fact that the
new science had a broad base of popular interest achieved two results. First,
the instrument-making trade was so well supported that it was capable of
producing new research instruments. Second, the pressure of popular inter-
est stimulated patronage for science from governments, learned societies, and
wealthy individuals, providing the power to drive the engine of scientific re-
search in this very scientific century.
Scientific Instruments and Their Makers ,,,
Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press, 2008