To sum up, then, the effect of the immersion system, greatly assists in the correction of aberration, gives increased magnification and angular aperture, increase of working distance between the objective and object, and renders admissible the use of the thicker glass-cover.
The aperture question would in all probability have remained unsolved many years longer (ten or twelve years elapsed after I brought the question under discussion before opticians gave way), but for the fortunate circumstance that the eminent mathematical and practical optician, Professor Abbe, of Jena, was about to visit London. This came off in the early part of the seventies, when the late Mr. John Mayall and myself had the good fortune to interview him. The subject discussed was naturally the increase of aperture and the theory of microscopical vision. He readily at our request undertook to re-investigate the question in all its bearings on the microscope. It is almost unnecessary to add that the conclusions he came to, and the results obtained, have proved of inestimable value to the microscopist and practical optician, and it may well seem necessary to explain somewhat at greater length the conclusions the learned Professor came to, and by the adoption of which the microscope has been placed on a more scientific basis than it had before attained to. Several papers were published _in extenso_ in the “Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society,” and I am greatly indebted to Mr. Frank Crisp, LL.D., for an excellent _resumé_ of Abbe’s Monograph.[14]
The essential step in the consideration of aperture is, as I have said, to understand clearly what is meant by the term. It will at once be recognised that its definition must necessarily refer to its primary meaning of _opening_, and must, in the case of an optical instrument, define its capacity for receiving rays from the object, and transmitting them to the image received at the eye-piece.
In the case of the telescope-objective, its capacity for receiving and transmitting rays is necessarily measured by the expression of its absolute diameter or “opening.” No such absolute measure can be applied in the case of the microscope objective, the largest constructed lenses of which having by no means the largest apertures, being, in fact, the lower powers of the instrument, whose apertures are for the most part but small. The capacity of a microscope objective for receiving and transmitting rays is, however, as will be seen, estimated by its _relative_ opening, that is, its opening in relation to its focal length. When this relative opening has been ascertained, it may be regarded as synonymous with that denoted in the telescope by _absolute_ opening. That this is so will be better appreciated by the following consideration:--