INDEX 1788 : Y.II.380

Speculum sphaerico-concavum, diametro pollicum 9 pedi aeneo insistens, ut attolli deprimi, et in orbem verti possit.

Spherical-concave mirror, 9 inches in diameter on a bronze post, so that it can be elevated or lowered and so that it may be able to rotate.

This is a support for a spherical concave mirror, mounted on a circular black wooden frame 28 cm in diameter. The frame is held by a bronze support attached by a sphere to an open hemisphere fixed to the upper part of a wooden tripod. This sphere is mobile, allowing the mirror to point in different directions by means of a rack-rail on a brass spindle, giving the mirror the greatest possible variety of positions. Rómulo de Carvalho mentions in his work, História do Gabinete de Física da Universidade de Coimbra, in regard to this apparatus, "The support exists but the mirror does not", from which we deduce that the mirror it is now equipped with is not the original.

From Colégio dos Nobres, catalogue n.º 373.

Carvalho, Rómulo de, História do Gabinete de Física da Universidade de Coimbra, Universidade de Coimbra, Biblioteca Geral, Coimbra, 1978, p.524.