Microscope

1866

Patent model for Hamilton L. Smith, “Improvement in Microscopes,” U.S. Patent 52901 (1866). Hamilton Lanphere Smith (1819-1903) was a graduate of Yale College who taught natural philosophy and astronomy at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, from 1853 to 1868, and then moved to Hobart College in Geneva, N.Y. Smith was also an avid microscopist. His invention, he claimed “consists in the use of a movable reflector inserted into the tube of a microscope and arranged so as to transmit the light down through the lens on the object in such a manner that by the action of said lens or object glass of the microscope the light is condensed on the object to be viewed, and an object viewed as opaque will be illuminated for the microscope.”