METIUS (James), of Alcmær, in Holland, the inventor of telescopes with glasses, one of which he presented to the States-General in 1609. Tubes, extended, by uniting them, to a great length, were known to the ancients; but Metius was the first who added glasses, and he was indebted to chance for the discovery: he had frequently observed some schoolboys playing upon the ice, who made use of their copy books rolled up in the shape of tubes, to look at each other, to which they sometimes added pieces of ice at each end, to view distant objects: this led him to the invention of optic glasses.