BOOKPLATES OF GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES AND RESEARCH INSTITUTES

The Billings Microscope Collection is housed in Washington D.C. at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, which was founded as the Army Medical Museum in 1862.  The bookplate (Figures 19, 20) of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology Library, now quite scarce, depicts a microscope with aperture wheel and bulls-eye lens.  Before the adjustable iris diaphragm, one rotated a wheel that had holes of different diameter; changes in the numerical aperture of the condenser to correspond to objective numerical aperture were made by changing hole size – all of which could be viewed at the objective back focal plane.  There is a sliding tube coarse focus, and pillar-mounted fine adjustment.

click image to enlarge (113K) Figure 19

click image to enlarge (126K) Figure 20

The splendid bookplate of The British Cotton Industry Research Association, founded in 1919, depicts Britannia surrounded by the cotton plant, a loom, and a nicely-rendered microscope (Figure 21).

click image to enlarge (110K) Figure 21

click image to enlarge (116K) Figure 22

The bookplate of the McCrone Research Institute (Figure 22) is the same as the one described above for McCrone Associates; only the names at the bottom have been changed.

The bookplate of the National Fish & Wildlife Forensics Laboratory, Morphology Section Library, Ashland, OR (Figures 23, 24) has a graphical microscope whose lower half has been incorporated into the spotted skin of an endangered species.

click image to enlarge (163K) Figure 23

click image to enlarge (90K) Figure 24