I have just put a different book in the glass display cabinet - please come and have a look at this amazing work!
The
rare book on display from our collection is: Hooke, Robert. Micrographia restaurata: or, the copper-plates of Dr. Hooke's wonderful
discoveries by the microscope, reprinted and fully explained. Whereby the most
valuable particulars in that celebrated author's Micrographia are brought
together in a narrow compass and intermixed, occasionally, with many
entertaining and instructive discoveries and observations in natural history.
London: John Bowles; 1765.
Balfour Library class
mark: Folio
101.
The book is open at: Plate 26, The
great-bellyed, or female Gnat. This is a spectacular copperplate engraving
depicting a gnat under the microscope. All of the plates in this work gave
readers an amazing insight into the miniature world of animals for perhaps the
first time.
Robert Hooke (1635-1703) was an
English instrument-maker, experimentalist and natural philosopher. In 1653 or
1654 he went to Christ Church, Oxford, initially as a chorister, but then
serving as assistant to Robert Boyle. Hooke assisted Boyle with his experiments
on the spring and the weight of air and was thus exposed to active scientific
research.
In 1662 Hooke was working as curator
for experiments for the newly formed Royal Society of London, his task being to
provide three or four experiments at each meeting. Hooke published the
demonstrations and commentaries he gave at these meetings in works such as the Micrographia,
or, Some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying
glasses, with observations and inquiries thereupon (1665). This book
initiated the field of microscopy; Hooke applied his microscope to inanimate
and animate objects, revealing remarkable features about their structure. His
talent for drawing and attention to detail is evident in the many plates
included in the volume, especially those of the fly, gnat and flea, and his
text provides clear and precise descriptions of observations, and also
explanations of the things observed.
Many of the observations he recorded
in Micrographia were new. For example in his observation on the
structure of cork he became the first scientist to describe cells (he coined
that term because plant cells, which are walled, reminded him of monks’
chambers), and he was the first to describe the compound eye of the fly.
Forty years after Hooke’s death, Micrographia
had become difficult and expensive to obtain. The Micrographia was
reissued in 1745 in a condensed form. This version, Micrographia Restaurata
(Micrographia Restored) contains all of Hooke’s original engravings,
most of which were printed from the original copper plates. The commentary is
shorter and simpler than the original, but preserves the important features of
Hooke’s original observations.
Sources:
King’s College London, Special
Collections, Hooke’s Micrographia http://www.kingscollections.org/exhibitions/specialcollections/to-scrutinize-nature/boyle-and-hooke/hookes-micrographia
Patri J. Pugliese, ‘Hooke, Robert (1635–1703)’,
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/13693,
accessed 18 April 2012]
Rod Beavan at http://www.roberthooke.org.uk/
Sutton, John (Apr 2001) Hooke, Robert.
In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net
[doi: 10.1038/npg.els.0002424]
