Auld lang syne, new beginnings and a mystery solved

After weeks of chaos, mountains of used packing paper and bubble wrap, disappearing essentials and wandering packing boxes, we’re beginning to see the end of the chaos… The regular visits to the old lab to look for misplaced odds and ends have finished, and the building is now occupied by asbestos removal experts. Curiously, the information monitors are still announcing lectures and other happenings!

Meanwhile, back at the Science Centre, order has (mostly) appeared from chaos. Small jobs such as picture hanging still need to be done, but we can actually find things and we’ve already had our first overseas visitor!

As you can see from the photos, the museum and archive spaces are a little smaller, but we have a good cellar for safe storage of items that we don’t need to use very often, so things don’t look as cluttered as they did. Working in well-lit rooms doesn’t feel quite natural yet – those who visited the old museum will remember that we had tiny windows covered with thick green anti-UV blinds and permanent electric lighting. Thanks to UV-resisting film on the glass, we can now see out of the windows, and even work by daylight!

We even have a proper office instead of odd desks squeezed in wherever we could – luxury!

Mystery solved

Returning to the strange microscope of my previous post, I think that I have solved the mystery. While cleaning it, I noticed that the heavy stand is not of the same quality as the rest of the microscope, and (unlike the rest of the microscope parts) does not have the Carl Zeiss Jena (CZJ) name or number. Also, the screws and hooks holding the four lenses and condensers are a bit rusty (and thus not up to CZJ’s standard). I then came across the diagram below in the 1885 CZJ catalogue, and realised that what we have is a home-made version. The microscope in the diagram only has a single condenser, but whoever made ours obviously felt that if a thing was worth doing, it was worth overdoing!

What we have is a standard CZJ “jug handled” microscope from the end of the 19^th century, lying on its back and converted for micro-photography. Sadly, we don’t have the camera, but it does explain how the early photographs (beginning in the 1880s) in our collection of glass negatives were made.

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