Henry Carvel Lewis (1853-1888) was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, resident of Germantown, and active member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, who sought an inexpensive and accurate polariscope that could be used to measure the optic-axial divergence in minerals. By 1880, James W. Queen & Co. had produced an instrument suitable for his purposes. This project probably led to the reflecting polariscope that Queen introduced to market a few years later. This example of that instrument was used at Mount St. Mary’s College in western Maryland. The inscription on the wooden frame reads "J.W. QUEEN & Co. / PHILA."
Ref: “A New Polariscope,” Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 32 (1880): 241.
James W. Queen & Co., Special List of New Polariscopes and Polarizing Objects for the Use of Schools and Colleges (Philadelphia, 1887).
James. W. Queen & Co., Catalogue and Price-List of Instruments and Apparatus Used in Physical Optics (Philadelphia, 1892).
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