Mark Twain's compound microscope
Date: circa 1880
Inventory Number: 1113
Classification: Microscope
Subject:
Maker: Negretti and Zambra (1850 - circa 1935)
Owner: Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)
Cultural Region:
Place of Origin:
City of Use:
Dimensions:
39 x 18 x 12 cm (15 3/8 x 7 1/16 x 4 3/4 in.)
case: 42.5 x 16.5 x 21.5 cm (16 3/4 x 6 1/2 x 8 7/16 in.)
Accessories: 3 objectives: 1/4, 1/2, 1" in cans; 2 oculars; polarizing set; bull's eye with stand; stage forceps; 31 prepared slides, 8 images (e.g., the Lord's Prayer); live box; standing case
DescriptionMonocular microscope with short draw tube for coarse focus and knob for fine focus. The optical tube is held on an arm attached to a pillar with a triangular section. This pillar is adjustable by rack and pinion. It is held in a base with two flat uprights attached to a Y-shaped foot. The stage is mechanical and has both adjustment knobs on the right. The square stage rotates around a central hole. Substage mirror. Square mahogany panel underneath the Y-foot.
Standing case with a drawer for accessories and slides. Slides include:
photograph of Grant and family, by W. J. F. Langenheim, Philadelphia
photograph of Poor Richard's Almanac of 1733, also by Langenheim.
photograph of "Sunday Morning," unsigned.
photograph of Dannecker's "Ariadne," unsigned.
slides of crystallized chemicals, fossils, diatoms, mineral specimens, coleoptera,
Some slides are signed by J. B. D. (John B. Dancer?); J. Bourgogne of Paris; T. H. McAllister, Optician, 49 Nassau Street, New York; and Norman.
Standing case with a drawer for accessories and slides. Slides include:
photograph of Grant and family, by W. J. F. Langenheim, Philadelphia
photograph of Poor Richard's Almanac of 1733, also by Langenheim.
photograph of "Sunday Morning," unsigned.
photograph of Dannecker's "Ariadne," unsigned.
slides of crystallized chemicals, fossils, diatoms, mineral specimens, coleoptera,
Some slides are signed by J. B. D. (John B. Dancer?); J. Bourgogne of Paris; T. H. McAllister, Optician, 49 Nassau Street, New York; and Norman.
SignedNegretti & Zambra / London
Historical AttributesThe microscope belonged to Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain), the author. When he lived in Hartford, Connecticut, Clemens gave the microscope to his secretary, Franklin G. Whitmore. After Clemens's death, Whitmore gave the instrument to John F. Enders, his grandson. In 1939, Dr. Enders (A.B. Yale, 1920; A.M. Harvard, 1922; PhD., 1930), Assistant Professor of Bacteriology, donated the microscope to the Ernst-Lewis collection.
Some of the preparations with the microscope were typical of the period in which it was made and may well have been examined by Clemens. Others were assembled by an uncle of Dr. Enders who entered the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1888. These were given to Dr. Enders, who inadvertently left them in the microscope case.
Clemens joked about the microscopic world, saying in 1884, "I think we are only the microscopic trichina concealed in the blood of some vast creature's veins, and it is that vast creature whom God concerns himself about and not us." In 1905, he began a work entitled, "Three Thousand Years among the Microbes," the autobiography of Yale graduate transformed into a cholera germ inhabiting the body of a tramp. This work was never finished.
Some of the preparations with the microscope were typical of the period in which it was made and may well have been examined by Clemens. Others were assembled by an uncle of Dr. Enders who entered the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1888. These were given to Dr. Enders, who inadvertently left them in the microscope case.
Clemens joked about the microscopic world, saying in 1884, "I think we are only the microscopic trichina concealed in the blood of some vast creature's veins, and it is that vast creature whom God concerns himself about and not us." In 1905, he began a work entitled, "Three Thousand Years among the Microbes," the autobiography of Yale graduate transformed into a cholera germ inhabiting the body of a tramp. This work was never finished.
ProvenanceSamuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain), Hartford, CT; gift to Franklin G. Whitmore, Hartford, CT, sometime before 1910; gift to John F. Enders, Boston, MA, after 1910; gift to Ernst- Lewis collection (No. 113), 1939.