This vertical microscope was designed and built by Andrew Ross in the late nineteenth century for students of botany and for aquarium observation. The original microscope is part of the Royal Microscopical Society collection in London.

Detailed information about this microscope is given by Gerard Turner in his informative book entitled The Great Age of the Microscope. The large flat tripod foot is designed so the microscope can be placed adjacent to the flat surface of the aquarium for observation. A sturdy central square vertical pillar provides support for the body tube, which is fastened to the pillar with a square sleeve provided with a rack to move the microscope up and down. Horizontal translation is accomplished through rackwork on a bar attached to the pillar sleeve. The compound microscope body tube has a lateral focusing mechanism used to focus the Zeiss objective and another adjustment to allow small vertical height corrections. Ross and associates advertised this model as the Monocular Aquarium and Physiological Microscope.

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