William Cary was a well-respected London microscope and instrument designer who employed Charles Gould, an apprentice who designed a popular microscope that later came to be widely known as a Cary-style microscope (they are designated Gould-style in this museum).

The microscope illustrated above was signed "Cary", but was made long after William Cary's death in 1825. The mahogany storage box is lined with blue velvet to produce an exquisitely decorated microscope base to which the central pillar is attached. The compound body tube has a bi-convex eye lens and a set of three interchangeable objectives of varying magnification. Focusing is achieved by moving the stage up and down with a knurled knob that rotates a pinion riding on a rack cut into the pillar. The substage mirror is planar and detachable for storage, similar to the rest of the components for this microscope.

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