2. Read the following words and guess their meaning:

THE MICROSCOPE

Even the ancients had known that curved mirrors and hollow glass spheres filled with water had a magnifying effect. In the opening decades of the 17^th century men began to experiment with lenses in order to increase this magnification as far as possible. In this, they were inspired by the great success of that other lensed instrument, the telescope, first put to astronomical use by Galileo [galə'lāō] in 1609.

Gradually, enlarging instruments, or microscopes (from Greek words meaning "to view the small") came into use. For the first time the science of biology was broadened and extended by device that carried the human sense of vision beyond the limit. It enables naturalists to describe small creatures with detail that would have been impossible without it, and it enabled anatomists to find structures that could not otherwise have been seen.

The first man, who made and used microscope was Anthony van Leeuwenhoek ['lāvən,hook; 'lāyən-]. He was not a professional scientist. In fact, he was a janitor in the city hall in Delft, Holland. He made more than 200 different microscopes, most of which had only one carefully polished lens. With his homemade lenses, he explored all sorts of things and discovered a world never before seen by the eyes of man. He examined milk, water, insects, the thin tail of a tadpole, and many other objects. His discoveries of bacteria, blood capillaries, blood cells, and sperm cells made him famous. In 1675, he wrote the first description of the microscopic animals that live in water. Leeuwenhoek's microscopes were simple. But his great patience and keen powers of observation brought to light many new facts about living things.

THE MODERN MICROSCOPE. The microscopes of today are far more complicated than those of Leeuwenhoek's time. They are called compound microscopes because they contain more than one lens. At the top there is an eyepiece which has two lenses in it. Then there is a long tube with more lenses at the bottom. These are called objectives. You can choose different magnifying powers by swinging different objectives into position. The usual high school microscope has a choice of two powers. With the low power, you can magnify an object about 100 times. The high power objective with the usual eyepiece can enlarge things up to 500 times.

If you wish to examine an object under the microscope you must pass a beam of light through it. As the light passes through the lenses, it is bent in such a way that a magnified image appears. For this reason, anything you wish to see must be very thin. If it is too thick, the light will not go through it. Most microscopes have a mirror at the base. This can be moved in any direction. It reflects light up through the object and the lenses. The object, mounted on a piece of glass, is placed on a flat platform called the stage. Then the microscope is adjusted by moving the tube up or down. This places the objective at the correct height above the object. Unless you focus carefully in this way, you can not get a clear picture.

THE ELECTRON MICROSCOPE. There is a limit to the magnifying power of the compound microscope. The very best of them can enlarge an object up to 4000 times. In recent years a new type of microscope has been invented that does not use light. Instead, beams of electrons are passed through the object and a picture is made on film. The electron microscope can give us an image 25,000 times larger than the object. This development illustrates an important principle of science: when a new instrument is invented, it may speed up discoveries in the laboratory. Already, the electron microscope has made it possible to see things never dreamed of by Leeuwenhoek. We may be sure that in the future it will continue to reveal many new secrets of nature.

Notes to the text:

to graduate from – закінчувати вищій навчальний заклад

a graduate – випускник

to a certain extent – до певної міри

to a great extent – в значній мірі

to a full extent – у повній мірі

in all appearance – цілком очевидно