Microscopic images of spiders and unusual stones dug up in Canterbury
Date
1701
Creator
Unknown, Artist
Object type
Archive reference number
Manuscript page number
pp2-3
Dimensions
height (plate): 208mm
width (plate): 358mm
width (plate): 358mm
Description
This is a plate from the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, showing images of insects and stones.
Object history
Printed as figs 1-8: anatomy of spider, in A. Leeuwenhoek, ‘Concerning spiders, their way of killing their prey, spinning their webs, generation, etc.’, Phil. Trans., vol. 22, no. 272 (July 1701), pp. 867-81. [NB the pagination of this article runs from 867 to 882 and then continues with a duplication of the numbers 875 to 881, i.e. a total of 23 pages.]
‘I caused the limner to look at some of the threads, as they came out of the spider’s body, who was forced to own that there was no describing them either with pen or pencil and that they could hardly be engraved on copper plates, however I have sent them as well done as I could’ (p. 873). 'In the said Figure [= Fig. 5] at W the working instruments stood as thick by one another as they do between R and S but because it is opposite to the sight, and consequently was not easily to be distinguisht, I order’d the Limner to leave that place empty. […] I made the Limner turn this instrument about, to have his opinion how many quills or reeds he thought there might be, upon which he told me that the number was above one hundred’ (p. 876 (first occurrence of page no.)). 'The teeth mentioned in it may be seen in the Repository of the Royal Society in Gresham College' (p. 881 (second occurrence)).
‘I caused the limner to look at some of the threads, as they came out of the spider’s body, who was forced to own that there was no describing them either with pen or pencil and that they could hardly be engraved on copper plates, however I have sent them as well done as I could’ (p. 873). 'In the said Figure [= Fig. 5] at W the working instruments stood as thick by one another as they do between R and S but because it is opposite to the sight, and consequently was not easily to be distinguisht, I order’d the Limner to leave that place empty. […] I made the Limner turn this instrument about, to have his opinion how many quills or reeds he thought there might be, upon which he told me that the number was above one hundred’ (p. 876 (first occurrence of page no.)). 'The teeth mentioned in it may be seen in the Repository of the Royal Society in Gresham College' (p. 881 (second occurrence)).
Related fellows
Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632 - 1723, Dutch) , Naturalist