This fairly rugged and inexpensive instrument has a wooden frame, a horizontal plate of blackened glass for the polarizer, a brass stage to hold the object to be examined, a magnifying lens, a Nichol prism analyzer, and a ground glass screen to shut off images of distant objects. The whole fits into a wooden box (12 inches x 18 inches x 6.75 inches high). The “James W. Queen & Co. / PHILADELPHIA” inscription on the stage refers to the firm that introduced this type of instrument in the 1880s.
Ref: Queen & Co., Inc., Catalogue of Physical Apparatus (Philadelphia, 1898), pp. 8-90.