c.1891, English, signed to foot 'J Swift & Son, London', standing on large cast brass foot finished in lacquered and oxidised brass, trunnions at top support body, large plano-concave mirror on gimbal below substage, substage assembly with rotating Nicol prism on fold out arm, iris diaphragm and focusing condenser all on rotating divided circle for angular measurement, square stage with mechanical stage, main body to rear of stage incorporating the 'Dick' rotating mechanism with fine focus via screw and course focusing via diagonal rack work, body tube incorporating a two sliding plates, with a fold in/out rotating eyepiece analyser engraved with 45 degree positions, complete with five Swift objectives, three eyepieces, bullseye condenser and other accessories in original French Polished mahogany case, microscope height

Footnotes

Swift introduced the Dick polarising microscope in 1890 to a design by Allen B. Dick. Dick first described his design for a polarizing microscope in the Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society (RMS, 1889, pp.432). The firm of Swift produced two models a smaller version and this, the large model. The large version of this complex polarising microscope is far less common.