_Emily._ I see it at once. The image E F is magnified, because it is farther from the lens, than the object A B; while the representation of the landscape was diminished, because it was nearer the lens, than the landscape was. A lens, then, answers the purpose equally well, either for magnifying or diminishing objects?
_Mrs. B._ Yes: if you wish to magnify the image, you place the object near the focus of the lens; if you wish to produce a diminished image, you place the object at a distance from the lens, in order that the image may be formed in, or near the focus.
_Caroline._ The magnifying power of this microscope is prodigious: but the indistinctness of the image, for want of light, is a great imperfection. Would it not be clearer, if the opening in the shutter were enlarged, so as to admit more light?
_Mrs. B._ If the whole of the light admitted, does not fall upon the object, the effect will only be to make the room lighter, and the image consequently less distinct.
_Emily._ But could you not by means of another lens, bring a large pencil of rays to a focus on the object, and thus concentrate upon it the whole of the light admitted?
_Mrs. B._ Very well. We shall enlarge the opening, and place the lens X Y (fig. 2.) in it, to converge the rays to a focus on the object A B. There is but one thing more wanting to complete the solar microscope, which I shall leave to Caroline's sagacity to discover.
_Caroline._ Our microscope has a small mirror attached to it, upon a moveable joint, which can be so adjusted as to receive the sun's rays, and reflect them upon the object: if a similar mirror were placed to reflect light upon the lens, would it not be a means of illuminating the object more perfectly?
_Mrs. B._ You are quite right. P Q (fig. 2.) is a small mirror, placed on the outside of the window-shutter, which receives the incident rays S S, and reflects them on the lens X Y. Now that we have completed the apparatus, let us examine the mites on this piece of cheese, which I place near the focus of the lens.
_Caroline._ Oh, how much more distinct the image now is, and how wonderfully magnified! The mites on the cheese look like a drove of pigs scrambling over rocks.
_Emily._ I never saw any thing so curious. Now, an immense piece of cheese has fallen: one might imagine it an earthquake: some of the poor mites must have been crushed; how fast they run--they absolutely seem to gallop.