Punch,  47 (1864), 124–25.

From Our Ill-Used Contributor

Anon

Genre:

Regular Feature, Letter, Spoof

Subjects:

Instruments, Display, Commerce, Heat, Astronomy, Meteorology, Microscopy, Government


    The letter-writer describes his 'delightful and instructive walk' on the south side of the Strand, a journey that brings him into direct sunlight and which prompts him to hope that 'Posterity will twist the Strand a little, and amend this fault, unless the Sun himself shall correct it by some alteration of the precession of the equinoxes' or 'other astronomical reform'. He goes on to describe some scientific instruments in a window of an undisclosed shop, including a 'thermometer that tells you how cold it will be on Christmas Eve next', a 'telescope, very cheap, that will enable you to hear the doves cooing in the planet Venus', and a microscope that reveals the coarseness of the skin. Later, he comes across a 'picture-shop' whose windows display a photograph of a 'great photographic chemist', and a 'watch-face high up below a window', a instrument apparently 'put there to test the power of certain Government telescopes'. (124)



© Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical Project, Universities of Leeds and Sheffield, 2005 - 2020

Printed from Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical: An Electronic Index, v. 4.0, The Digital Humanities Institute <http://www.sciper.org> [accessed ]