Butterfly Scales & Beard Hair: Antique Slides Reveal Obsession with Science

Victorian microscope slide of a diatom. Microscopes were a popular form of entertainment for science-obsessed people living in Victorian-era Britain. — This ocean-dwelling diatom — a single-celled alga surrounded by a glass-like wall — is preserved on a 19th century microscope slide. In Victorian Britain, interested in science was widespread and microscopes became popular.

(Image credit: Howard Lynk, Victorian Microscope Slides)

A miniature photograph of the moon, beard hairs whose owner has been dead for centuries, a shaving of Egyptian mummy bone, flowerlike patterns constructed from butterfly scales and algae called diatoms, and engravings of biblical text.

During a good part of the 19th century, called the Victorian times, a peek through a microscope could reveal very different sights than ones we'd expect to see today. In the mid- to late-1800s, microscopes were not only instruments of scientific discovery, but they were tools for popular entertainment, particularly in Britain. And an industry of inventive slide makers sprung up to feed the public appetite for this new way of seeing.

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One of the strangest slides in collector Howard Lynk's collection contains three innocuous-looking brown hairs, which came from the beard of a man named Thomas Beaufort, who was half brother to King Henry IV. Beaufort died in 1427, and about 350 years later, in 1772, his coffin was exhumed and sold, and his body mutilated. Somehow, perhaps via the Royal College of Surgeons, his beard hairs made their way into the hands of a prominent and prolific slide maker.

This slide, shown both front and back, contains beard hairs taken from Thomas Beaufort, who died roughly four centuries before the slide was made. Lynk's research revealed that Beaufort was half-brother to King Henry IV and was made Duke of Exeter in 1410. He died in 1427, and was buried at a church in the town of Bury St. Edmund's in England, according to West Suffolk, a book about the history of the western division of the county, published in 1907. On Feb. 20, 1772, laborers found Beaufort's lead coffin and sold it for 15 shillings. His body, which had been embalmed and was perfectly preserved, according to the book, was mutilated — with his arms cut off at the elbows and skull sawed to pieces before he was reburied.

Rising literacy during the 19th century sparked a demand for books, which could be produced more cheaply due to advancements in publishing. Science books caught on, in particular the anonymous book "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," which became a sensation when in 1844, it put forward that everything in existence evolved from an earlier form, setting the stage for Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species," published 15 years later, according to Lightman.

Slide makers prepared insects like these by using potassium hydroxide to remove their innards, while leaving the hard outer shell, called an exoskeleton, intact. These remains were imbedded in Canadian balsam, which is basically tree sap. Later slide mounters devised a way to preserve the entire insect, including its innards by mounting it within a well on the slide, according to Lynk.

Just as literacy and the popularity of books exploded in the 19th century, a revolution in visual communication took place. Images — like book illustrations, panoramas and illusions — became more plentiful and popular. New technologies explored how we see, like the stereoscope, which recreates three-dimensional vision, and sights once available to only a few, like the view through a microscope or telescope, became widely available. Photography was invented in the first part of the century, and then applied more to scientific subjects as time progressed; and the scientific study of the eye became important, according to Lightman. [Eye Tricks: Gallery of Visual Illusions]

Wynne was a reporter at The Stamford Advocate. She has interned at Discover magazine and has freelanced for The New York Times and Scientific American's web site. She has a masters in journalism from Columbia University and a bachelor's degree in biology from the University of Utah.