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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Binastro" data-source="post: 3205499" data-attributes="member: 111403">. This information is from 1966.It concerns a working engineering optician who visited a noted Ceylon optician to try and set up an optical surfacing shop in the country.The, I think British, optician was told about an old man who was able to make lenses using a very crude and ancient method, he was descended from a long line of ancestors skilled in this craft.We set off to Kandy, the old capital and traditional seat of the Kings of Ceylon.We were taken deep into the hills through thick forest areas and found ourselves on the slopes of another hill.The scene of great beauty contained a settlement of four or five huts.In the large native bungalow we met a tall man.We were not well received until the interpreter explained that the European was a lens maker.This fact had a startling effect.'' This is a great occasion. No other man of my craft except members of my own family has ever visited this workshop and my ancestors have lived here on this hill since 1340''.His ancestor came in 1340 as a mason from India to build the temples of the Ceylon king, which is how this date can be verified. Many of these temples are still in use.The King of that time had very bad eyesight and was told that one of the Indians could bring back his eyesight as clear as when he was a youth by holding the polished stone to his eye.The mason only required to know how long the King had lived. This information was readily given.The man returned in three days with the reading glass.It was made of nearly clear amethyst. High quality amethysts come from Ratnapur, the gem centre of the country, where amethysts are still sourced.When the King used the reading glass he was so pleased he gave the mason a large plot of land where the family have lived ever since.The old man in 1966 use the same methods of manufacture.From the back of his bungalow was brought a cloth bag. He pulled out a 6 inch diameter circular black stone concave on both sides. This stone tool had been used for 600 years and the European was the first to be allowed to touch it.The article goes on to say that this ancient craft, perhaps taken to India via the trade routes from the lands of the Pharaohs, Egypt or even from distant China maybe 2000 years ago.The European was given a solid bifocal, the reading proportion at the top. The local optician did not like it.I don't know if the family are still making lenses in the same place, but I do hope so.Take the above information as you wish. It comes from a good source. From my studies of the mathematics of Greece and the astronomy  and calendars of Babylon, I would think it quite likely that a telescope was known and existed perhaps 1000 years prior to the independent discovery in the early 1600s by the Dutch and the mid-1500s by the Elizabethan English, who kept their invention as a military secret. Whether anyone tried to make a binocular or not, I don't know. Maybe yes.</blockquote>

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