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A microscope owned and used by British naturalist Charles Darwin will be up for auction in December.

The microscope was designed by Charles Gould around 1825 and is one of the six surviving microscopes associated with Darwin.

Experts said that the manufacture date of the instrument matches at the time when Darwin was studying zoophytes, organisms such as coral and sea anemone.

Darwin eventually gave the microscope to his son Leonard and remained in the possession of the family for almost 200 years.

The microscope is expected to fetch up to $480,000 (PhP24 million) when it goes under the hammer at Christie's Valuable Books and Manuscripts auction on December 15.

“It is just incredibly spine-tingling to look through this and see the microscopic world that Darwin would have seen in the 1820s and 30s," James Hyslop, head of Department, Scientific Instruments, Globes and Natural History, at Christie's, mentioned to Reuters.

“Later in his life in 1858, there's a wonderful letter that he writes to his eldest son saying young Lenny was dissecting at his microscope and he said 'Oh Papa, I should be so glad of this for my whole life.' It's wonderful to have that family connection of Charles Darwin just before he becomes internationally famous,” he added.

Darwin published his trailblazing work titled On the Origin of Species in 1859 and is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology.

Today, Darwin's theory that all species of life came from common ancestors is recognized generally and widely accepted as a vital concept in the field of science.

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