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Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 by Various
page 72 of 115 (62%)

[Illustration: POCKET OPERA GLASS.]

Inasmuch as high power combined with small size is usually required in
an opera glass, manufacturers have always striven to unite these two
features in their instruments, and have succeeded in producing glasses
which, although sufficiently small to be carried in the waistcoat
pocket, are nevertheless powerful enough to allow quite distant objects
to be clearly distinguished. Recently, a Parisian optician has succeeded
in constructing an instrument of this kind that is somewhat of a novelty
in its way, since its mechanism allows it to be closed in such a manner
as to take up no more space than a package of cigarettes (Fig. 1.) It is
constructed as follows:

AB and CD (Fig. 1) are two metallic tubes, in which slide with slight
friction two other tubes. Into the upper part of the latter are inserted
two hollow elliptical eye-pieces, which move therein with slight
friction, and which are united by the two supports tor the wheel, _bb_
(Fig. 4), and endless screw that serve for focusing the instrument. The
eyepieces, TT, are held in the tube by means of two screws, _vv_ (Figs.
2 and 4), in such a way that they can revolve around the latter as axes.
The lenses of the eye-piece are fixed therein by means of a copper ring.
The object glasses are placed in the ends of the tubes, AB and CD, at
_oo_.

When the instrument is closed, it forms a cylinder 35 millimeters in
diameter by 11 centimeters in length. To open it, it is grasped by the
extremities and drawn apart horizontally so as to bring it into the
position shown in Fig. 2. Then it is turned over so that the screw, V,
points upward, while at the same time the two tubes are pressed gently
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