JF Ptak Science Books Post 2017 Paper Microscope series
To paraphrase an idea often stated by our younger daughter, Tess, on her understanding of science--"Everything goes Somewhere"--the things that we take for granted today all made a first appearance somewhere, sometime.
This is the thought that struck me when I saw this illustration of frost on a pane of glass, on looking through a window that is covered with frost. I really don't know offhand when the very first record of an image of frost on a window occurs, but this one, found in the fantastic work on the history of Scandanavia (and etc.) in Olaus Magnus' Histotria di gentibus septentrionale ("History of the Northern Peoples"), which was pubished in 1555, must be at least very early.
[Image source: http://www.avrosys.nu/prints/index.htm]
The sections of the print on the right shows different forms of ice crystals--most, or all, are fairly unbelievable, but then again this decades before the microscope was invented. That said, it does take a little bit of imagination to see an eye in a crystal, though not long afterwards scientific investigators like the great and unusual Athansius Kircher found the Virgin Mary in agate--and there's a very long and deep history of anthropomorphization of natural history elements beyond this. The image on the bottom left is of falling snow, but the images on the left (top) are said to be frost on windows.
What a fantastic realization, to imagine that this may be among the earliest representations of the great and graphical and physical world of ice. Everything gets seen the first time somewhere--maybe this is it for frost-on-a-window, maybe not. I'm not a frost expert. I did try to find the first photograph of frost on a window, and then the first photograph of frost, but there were no hits in Google, and of course nothing in my books on the history of photography. Then again, this is a pretty arcane matter, except that frost on the window can be fantastically beautiful and complex, and I wonder why it would not have made very early appearances in print and photography. Perhaps it did, but I have a feeling that it didn't.
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