then a three foot Glass, and a sixty foot Glass will
proportionably bear a greater Aperture then a thirty,
and will as much excel it also as a six foot does
a three foot, as I have experimentally observ’d
in one of that length made by Mr. Richard Reives
here at London, which will bear an Aperture
above three inches over, and yet make the Object proportionably
big and distinct; whereas there are very few thirty
foot Glasses that will indure an Aperture of more then
two inches over. So that for Telescopes,
supposing we had a very ready way of making their
Object Glasses of exactly spherical Surfaces, we might,
by increasing the length of the Glass, magnifie the
Object to any assignable bigness. And for performing
both these, I cannot imagine any way more easie, and
more exact, then by this following Engine, by means
of which, any Glasses, of what length soever, may
be speedily made. It seems the most easie, because
with one and the same Tool may be with care ground
an Object Glass, of any length or breadth requisite,
and that with very little or no trouble in fitting
the Engine, and without much skill in the Grinder.
It seems to be the most exact, for to the very last
stroke the Glass does regulate and rectifie the Tool
to its exact Figure; and the longer or more the Tool
and Glass are wrought together, the more exact will
both of them be of the desir’d Figure.
Further, the motions of the Glass and Tool do so cross
each other, that there is not one point of eithers
Surface, but has thousands of cross motions thwarting
it, so that there can be no kind of Rings or Gutters
made either in the Tool or Glass.
The contrivance of the Engine is, only to make the ends of two large Mandrils so to move, that the Centers of them may be at any convenient distance asunder, and that the Axis of the Mandrils lying both in the same plain produc’d, may meet each other in any assignable Angle; both which requisites may be very well perform’d by the Engine describ’d in the third Figure of the first Scheme: where AB signifies the Beam of a Lath fixt perpendicularly or Horizontally, CD the two Poppet heads, fixt at about two foot distance, EF an Iron Mandril, whose tapering neck F runs in an adapted tapering brass Collar; the other end E runs on the point of a Screw G; in a convenient place of this is fastned H a pully Wheel, and into the end of it, that comes through the Poppet head C, is screwed a Ring of a hollow Cylinder K, or some other conveniently shap’d Tool, of what wideness shall be thought most proper for the cize of Glasses, about which it is to be imploy’d: As, for Object glasses, between twelve foot and an hundred foot long, the Ring may be about six inches over, or indeed somewhat more for those longer Glasses. It would be convenient also and not very chargeable, to have four or five several Tools; as one for all Glasses between an inch and a foot, one for all Glasses between a foot and ten foot