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Lens Story: 3 of 28
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THE MENTOR · DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE
SERIAL NUMBER 186
The Story of the Lens
By FLOYD L. DARROW
Head of Science Department, Polytechnic Preparatory School,
Brooklyn, N.Y.
 HEN and where the first crude
experiments with optical glass were made, no record discloses.
Certain it is that the art of glass making goes back to the very dawn
of civilization. But the discovery of the optical properties of glass
and their utilization in instruments for the aid of human sight is of
much later origin. Burning glasses were used by the Greeks and Romans.
By their aid the sacred fires in Roman temples were rekindled on those
rare occasions when, by chance, they had been allowed to die out. Stories
are told of the wonderful effects produced by the ancient scientist and
philosopher, Archimedes
(ark-e-mee'-dees), with his burning glasses, it being reported that
at the siege of Syracuse
he set fire to the Roman ships by this means. The ancients, however, had
no knowledge of the
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