Genre:

Reportage, Literary Gossip

Subjects:

Geology, Stratigraphy, Mineralogy | Natural History, Biogeography | Geology, Mapping | Meteorology, Instruments | Astronomy, Instruments, Optics, Microscopy, Invertebrate Zoology, Entomology, Mineralogy | Natural History, Collecting | Disease, Health, Medical Treatment | Gravity, Heat | , NavigationMetallurgy

People mentioned:

Robert Jameson, William Smith, George B Greenough, Leopold von Buch, Alexander J Adie, Edward Donovan, Everard Home, Humphry Davy, John Davy, Edward D Clarke, James Hutton

Institutions mentioned:

Geological Society , Royal Society

Publications cited:

Smith 1815, Buch 1825 Annals of Philosophy Medico-Chirurgical Review

    Reports that: 'the Glasgow Astronomical Society has lately procured a solar microscope from Dolland [i.e. Peter Dollond], the largest that celebrated optician has ever constructed. [...] The first trial of this superb instrument disclosed some wonderful phenomena; hundreds of insects were discovered devouring the body of a gnat. These animalcula were magnified so as to appear nine inches long, their actual size being somewhat less than the fourteenth hundredth part of an inch. The mineral kingdom afforded another display of brilliant objects; their crystallization, and the splendour of their colouring, exceed anything the most lively imagination can conceive' (418–19).