Abstract
WHEN Henry Clifton Sorby laid the foundation of the science of microscopical petrology, in the year 1851, the instrumental means at his command were of the simplest kind; his microscope had attached to it two Nicol-prisms, one above the eye-piece and the other below the stage, the latter being capable of rotation, thus rendering it possible to study the sections of minerals in rocks by plane polarised light. Then, as is so often the case, necessity became “the mother of invention”, and Sorby himself, as well as several of his followers, devised additions to their microscopes which converted them into more useful instruments for investigating the optical properties of minerals, as seen in thin sections of rocks. The designers of these improvements were, of course, dependent on the able makers of optical instruments for putting their suggestions into practical form.
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J., J. The Evolution of the Petrographical Microscope . Nature 94, 314–315 (1914). https://doi.org/10.1038/094314a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/094314a0