Initially, a hand held tube, compound microscopes were soon mounted to a side pillar with a base so they could be rotated at an angle and objects illuminated with a magnifying glass on a stand known as a bulls eye condensing lens. Around 1855 large, elegant binocular microscopes with dual eyepieces on twin body tubes that converge into a single tube with a single objective appeared on the market. They were meant to alleviate eyestrain because of stereoscopic viewing. They were generally accompanied by abundant accessories but were unpopular for serious research due to delicacy and inconsistent optics. From the 1870s some instruments were made of nickel silver or nickel brass and oxidized brass was used on some microscope feet and posts Black enamelled steel or brass became popular in the 1890s.

The microscope stand - the entire instrument without the magnifying lenses and other interchangeable accessories - are quite varied and have evolved over the years so they help date an instrument. By the mid to late 1800s when microscope production and use began in earnest, two major types of stands dominated the market. One is the Continental stand, with the reputation of a practical research tool, manufactured mainly in Germany and include the Zeiss jug-handle stand, introduced in 1898. The other is the English stand, which is generally larger and more elaborate, delicate and complex with a plethora of accessories. Microscopes have continued to evolved in design, components, optics and other features related to progress in metallurgy, optics, manufacturing and electrical technology, but until the 1940s, some stands had remained remarkably similar in appearance for over 60 years. Binocular instruments became the norm during the 1930s, and by the 1940s variable illumination options included both substage transmitted light and overhead reflected light from the touch of a button. In the 1960s advances in lens technology included surface coatings and flat-field optics.

The drum microscope or Martin-type was created by Benjamin Martin in 1738 as the ‘pocket reflecting microscope’. The drum microscope is basically a single tube the user simply slides within an outer cylinder to focus and with a drum-shaped sub-stage that houses a reflecting mirror at the base. Objectives and eyepieces were interchangeable on some models. Some designs in the late 1800s differed by having the outer tube attached to side posts mounted to the drum stage below and adding a focusing rachet knob. In another variation the tube was attached to a rear post. The scope is small, portable, simple, rugged and remained popular throughout the 1800s well into the 1900s. Martin’s early model was one of the first microscopes to use an eyepiece micrometer for measuring the dimension of objects under magnification. ‘Chest microscopes’, intended for the amateur and popular from the late 1700s to the mid-1800s, are small compound microscopes that dismantle for storage in a fitted wood box. The Leitz Minor-5, introduced in 1924, is a small field microscope with a collapsible hinged frame, so the instrument can be folded-up to fit in a leather pouch.

The microscope has been modified in various ways for specialized applications. The inverted chemical microscope, made from 1850 into the 1900s has a microscope tube mounted at an angle below the stage where a prism transfers light from the fluid or other object of study resting on an open unobstructed stage through an objective under the stage. The petrographic microscope, which was commercialised in 1838 for mineral identification and petrographic studies, is fitted with a sub-stage light polarizer and a polarizing analyser filter in the tube above the objective so the user can control the polarization of light transmitted through a transparent thin section of mineral or rock specimens for identification. Dissecting microscopes are simple microscopes with lenses on a rotating arm mounted to a stand and specimen stage. Metallographic microscopes are designed for examination of opaque metals and large forgings while in a lathe. The photo-micrographic apparatus is a microscope that can be turned to a horizontal position along a rail (optical bench) mounted with a bellows camera at one end. Horizontal refracting microscopes have been manufactured primarily for clinical use, and some microscopes from the mid-1800s are convertible from horizontal to vertical. The panoticon is a nineteenth century dual microscope/telescope with interchangeable barrels for either application. The ‘Davon’ is a dual telescope-microscope in which the objective lens of the telescope focuses in front of a microscope objective attached to the end of the eyepiece tube, which can be unscrewed for use as a microscope. The solar microscope is designed to project the image of a transparent object on a microscope slide by using sunlight.

The earliest microscopes are called simple microscopes or the ‘single’ type, using only a single lens. The hand lens or ‘loop’ is the modern low-magnification equivalent. The lenses of the first simple microscopes were usually encased in metal, ivory, tortoise shell, horn or wood with a small handle, or mounted in a brass plate like the Leeuwenhoek microscope. Lenses ground to 1/10 inch diameter can magnify up to 100x, and some early lenses were actually made of polished beads of glass. The first simple microscope ever known to be on display was in a London exhibition in 1619, and the earliest illustration known is Isaac Beeckman’s drawing of a ‘microscopium’ in 1631. The simple microscope works by holding the lens right next to the eye and bringing the object of study close to it. The tiny high power lenses could be used best with transmitted light. The compass microscope used a hinge between a handle and the plate and a ring to hold interchangeable lenses of differing magnification. On the screw barrel type of simple microscope the barrel is screwed up or down to bring the specimen into the focal plane of the lens. They were usually mounted to a handle or came with a collapsible stand. Simple microscopes were sometimes mounted to a post on a stand, an arrangement called ‘botanical pattern’ today. Aquatic microscopes with glass stages on which to place water samples and dissecting microscopes with wood or brass stages and sub-stage reflecting mirrors were produced from the mid-1700s.

Early microscope slides were typically made of wood or ivory with round recesses to hold samples and glass mounts. Glass tubes were also used as slides. The modern glass slide became the norm by the early to mid-1800s. Reference slides for biology, geology and medicine were produced from the late 1800s and often come in a wooden box with stacked trays of over 50 to 100 slides. Microscope accessories include eyepieces, objectives, micrometer eyepieces, adjustable stage micrometers, substage condensers, substage pollarizers, bulls eye lenses, condensers, interference plates, filters, tweezers, probes, sample pins and clamps, live boxes, fish troughs, heating and temperature stages, polarizing eyepieces, drawing eyepieces, camera lucida eyepieces, paraffin microscope lamps, incandescent gas lamps and arc lamps to mention the most common. Eyepiece micrometers are eyepiece lenses inscribed with a graduated line (graticules) in micrometers. Stage micrometers are mechanical stage devises that come from the manufacturer either permanently integrated into the stage or as an accessory attachment. They are used to orient microscope slides by x and y horizontal coordinates. Precision micromanipulators with tiny scalpels, needles, wrenches and other mini-tools, invented in 1859, can manage maneuvers down to 5-micrometer increments. The Berek compensator is a variable wave plate micrometer that slides into a slot above the objective in petrographic microscopes to determine the retardation position of interference colors for mineral identification. Vertical illuminators like the Berek illuminator screw onto the nose of petrographic microscopes for reflected light microscopy. It has an objectives clamp at the bottom. The Wright eyepiece is a polarizing accessory with a 360 degree adjustable dial and a slot near the bottom for wave plates.