Showing 89 results

'Libro varissimo del Conte Guido di materia fisiche e mathematiche' A volume of alchemical tracts. Items 7, 9, 18, part of 19 and 23 are all in one hand; items 11 to 15 are in another; the remainder are in various hands. Most of the items appear to date from the early or middle 17th century, to judge by the hands, though the matter is in most cases probably much older.

Eclipses 1882-2000: Rough projections of eclipses of the sun and moon by Samuel J. Johnson, includes a letter from the author dated 25 March 1882 written at Melplash Vicarage Bridport.

'Tables of Specific Gravities extracted from various Authors with Notes. To which is prefixed a Critic on the Authors of these Experiments' compiled by Richard Davies.

Scrap book of drawings by Richard Waller attached is a report by Dr Christopher J Brooke entitled 'Avebury - Multispectral Photographic Examination of manuscript drawing in pencil by John Aubrey' made 23 February 1989 referring to MS/131/67.

Notes on John Canton's pneumatical experiments, together with some rough minutes of the Canton Committee.

Apollonii Conica methodo nova illustrata et succincte demonstrata per Isaacum Barrow, continet hoc volumen archetypon integrum editionis Londini 1675, in forma quarta, impressa.

Manuscript of Isaac Barrow containing Archimedes' works on spheres and cylinders, on the dimensions of the circle, on spirals or helices and other topics.

Manuscript of a treatise on logic by John Wallis, 1685.

Signatures of Fellows or their agents, showing them to have received their copies of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.

Letters and papers relating to the Cook Medal struck by the Royal Society in honour of Captain Cook.

Bibliography of the Effects of Very Low Temperatures upon the Properties of Metals between the years 1869-1933, prepared by Sir Robert Hadfield.

Paper by Colonel John Herschel entitled 'History of Pendulum Observations from the time of Galileo to the present day' (1880).

Operations connected with the Levellings carried across the Isthmus of Panama by John Augustus Lloyd, c 1830.

Diploma and Certificates given to Michael Faraday by various academies and societies with table of contents written in his own hand by Michael Faraday.

Researches in Solar Physics by Warren de la Rue FRS, Balfour Stewart FRS and B Loewry.

Angelander's Stars from 15 degrees to 30 degrees South, brought up by precession from 1850-1875 by Richard Christopher Carrington.

Latin translation attributed to Abelard of Bath, of Euclid's geometry ending imperfectly near the beginning of book 15 in the propsition 'intra propsitum cubum corpus habens iiij bases triangulas equalium laterum resignare'. Written in England

A mathematical dissertation by Boemke written at Berlin, 1827.

'Memoir au College Royal de Medecine sur l'utilite d'un Tratement simple pour les Maladies Chirurgicales en genral, etc', by Louis Desbout MD. Contains 7 sheets of drawings of instruments and appliances and illustrations of how they are used.

A sixteenth century manuscript which includes:

1. The order for the king's suite

2. The order of the kinges going to the chappell on Sherethursdaie, and from thence into the hall

3. The book showing what appertains to the offices of the king's chamberlains, vice chamberlains, and ushers

4. The order for the banquet at Greenwich on St Thomas's day, 9 Henry VIII, and other similar matters. Includes a diagram.

'The extraordinary history of a new method of inoculating discovered in the kingdom of England', by Alexander Pearson.

Astronomical observations at Paramatta, New South Wales.

Reports of 11 lectures on chemistry and 3 on electricity by Henry Dicks, with nine original letters and newspaper cuttings.

A collection of eighteenth century letters and papers of Sir Joseph Banks, his family and other contemporary Fellows.

Papers relating to the proposal of Zachariah Williams for the revealing a secret of a machine invented by him, to be used at sea for making salt-water fresh and drinkable, together with the inventor's letter to the Lords of the Admiralty on the subject.

A description of certain specimens of birds inhabiting the Hudson's Bay Company's Territories with remarks on the meteorology of the same place by Humphrey Martin, 1772.

Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life by William Stukeley, 1752, bound in at the back is the following printed tract 'The life of Sir Isaac Newton with an Account of his Writings. London. J. Roberts, Oxford Arms in Warwick Lane, 1728'.

Incip. 'Igitur ex quatuor elementis'
Desin 'Et hoc est qod ostendimus. Explicit'
Folios 1-9 [Mundus] igitur ex quatuor elementis isdemque totis in spere modum globatis.... retrogradari facit.
Part of book 8, 'De astronomia' of Martinus Capella, 'De nuptiis.'

Folios 9 verso - 49 verso (Text) Vnitas est esse rei per se discrecio...omnis numerus minor maioris aut est pars aut partes....medios assignare sit possibile.
(Commentary) Aut enim minor numerat maiorem....et hoc est qod ostenimus. Explicit.

Jordanus Nemorariius, 'De Arithmetica' printed several times but with a different commentary. Printed marginalia eg in folio 24, in a hand which occurs also in MS/28.

Four satires by George Minchin Minchin entitled: 1. Another Voyage to Laputa and Balnibarbi; 2. How I wrote my Reminiscences; 3. The Last Days of Balnibarbi and

4. The Ruins of Bolbadlyon.

'The Life of Confucius' by Louis Poirot, 'Avviso al Lettore' included as an inset.

Paper read at the Royal Society from 14 Feb to 6 Mar 1788 by John Ash entitled 'Observation and Experiments to investigate by Chemical Analysis the Medicinal Properties of the Mineral Waters of Spa and Aix la Chapelle in Germany and of the Waters and Boue at St Amand in French Flanders'.

'De ormesta mundi' by Orosius, some 16th century marginalia, Pauli Orosii Historiarum libri septem.

Documents relating to John Augustus Lloyd's paper on the difference of level of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans entitled 'Account of Levellings Carried across the Isthmus of Panama, to Ascertain the Relative Height of the Pacific Ocean at Panama and of the Atlantic at the Mouth of the River Chagres; Accompanied by Geographical and Topographical Notices of the Isthmus', 1830.

Two tracts relating to Confucius and Confucianism: Tract 1 'Ta Mio. Confucius philosophus totius imperii Sinensis Universalis Magtr', a translation of a Chinese original, by Johannes Rodriguez, 1763 and Tract 2 'Traduzione del Tciuntzui di Confuso fatta da Luigi de Poirot'.

Two treatises and some loose papers of Isaac Barrow including:

1. Appollonii Pergaei Conicorum libri quatuor, juxta viam et methodum Petri Herigonii, per notas reales ac universales demonstrati

2. Archimedis de Sphaera et Cylindro. Per eundem

3. Between these two treatises are a few odd sheets.

Papers of Thomas Andrews including papers relating to his research which fell into four main fields;

(1) studies of acids and metals in electrolytic experiments; (Papers 6 to 11 and 32)

(2) the calorimetry of chemical reactions, in particular those between acids and bases, and between metals and halogens; (Papers 13 to 16, 18 to 22, 40 and the manuscripts printed as 52 and 53)

(3) the properties and constitution of ozone; (Papers 31, 33 to 35, 37 and 45)

(4) the condensation of gases to liquids at high pressures (Papers 36, 38, 41, 47, 49 and 50)

The eight volumes of manuscripts described as 'Notes of Experiments' at the Royal Society contain the laboratory records on which most of his work is based.

The contents are described as far as possible in Thomas's own words from the title pages of each Book. Where the title page is uninformative then suitable headings have been chosen from the body of the notes. These title pages may have been written much later than the experiments since in 1862 there is the phrase 'critical point' which he probably invented only for his Bakerian Lecture of 1869. Some experiments or paragraph numbers are displayed on the title page of each Book. Those that are not, but are listed only on the pages themselves, are shown at the right-hand end of each line. The numbering of the experiments is again erratic; for example 376 may be followed by 277.

The reading of the notes on the experiments on the liquefaction of gases in Volumes 7 and 8 is helped by comparing them with the analysis by C.G. Knott 'Andrews' measurements of the compression of carbon dioxide and of mixtures of carbon dioxide and nitrogen' (Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 30, 1-22, 290 [1909-1910])

The Journal of the Proceedings of the Philosophical Society of Oxford, by William Musgrave, original journal in two volumes; transcribed from the original Minute Books in the Ashmolean Museum.

A Journal of a Voyage from Hull to Davis's Straits in the Ship Duncombe, 23 March to 11 December 1835, by William Scoffin 'Master by God's permission'.

Scrapbook of letters and other material collected by Caleb Burrell Rose including an anonymous photogenic drawing of two plants, mounted on paper with the title 'An early attempt of photography from Norwich'.

A catalogue of books of the library of Robert Boyle, in the hand of John Warr junior, executor of Robert Boyle and some theological notes.

Observations for ascertaining the distances across the English Channel made by direction of the French and English Governments, bearing the signatures of François Arago, Henry Kater and Thomas Colby.

Lecture notes on organic chemistry by Professor Edward Frankland.

Drawings from Richard Spruce's travels across Northern South America, primarily the Amazon and Orinoco river systems, throughout Brazil, Peru, Columbia, Venezeuela and the Guyana highlands. Included are several renderings of indigenous picture-writing figures Spruce found in the Guyana Highlands, with notes on their possible origin and meaning, portraits of local people from nine different nations of the Orinoco and Rio Negro with notes thereon, drawings of notable landscapes in the region, vegetation and sundry objects from local villages.
Drawn on for 'Notes of a botanist on the Amazon and Andes' (1908).

Log of the Proceedings on board HMS Fury on a voyage for the discovery of the North West Passage kept by James Clark Ross, 21 Jan 1824-5 Oct 1825.

Manuscript Journal Geographical Magnetical and Meteorological made by Captain Edward Sabine during Ross's Arctic Voyage in 1818.

1. Statii Thebais, cum glossis interlinearibus et scholis marginalibus. folio 1, recto

2. Nota de tempore Statii folio 122 verso

Incip. 'Queritur quo tempore Staciu,s'

Desin. 'Titus et Domitianus sibi caveant'

In the front is written; 'Liber Regalis Societatis London. ex dono RVD Nathaniel Vincent, DD Feb. 1, 1692/3'

Written in England. Erased inscription at foot of folio 1. The figure or letter 'x' at the head of folio 1 may be a pressmark.

Letters to Thomas Young from Messrs Arago, Biot, Bessel and Bergelius.

Letters from Sir Robert Moray to his friend Alexander Bruce, Earl of Kincardine, 1657-1673. Also known as 'The Kincardine Papers'. Bruce was sick of the ague in Bremen for part of this time, and the letters were written to alleviate the tedium of his illness, hence ranging over topics which might not otherwise have been the subjects of correspondence. They include accounts of chemical experiments in his laboratory, his interest in magnetism, medicine in all its aspects, horticulture, fuel, whale fishing, its risks and profits, coal mining, water wheels and tide mills, stone quarrying and the various qualities of different stones, the pumping works needed for undersea coal mines at Bruce's home at Culross in Fifeshire, even to the trees whose wood was best for pipelines, and the diameter of the bore best suited to the purpose. Familiarity is shown with mathematical and surveying instruments, with music, and all sorts of mechanical devices and especially clocks and watches, more particularly the taking out of a patent in respect of a clock for use at sea for finding longitude. Bruce is advised on the choice of books over a wide range of subjects. Moray includes anecdotes to amuse his ailing correspondent; he describes his quiet life and is enthusiastic about many of his chemical experiments. Notable at the end of the letters Moray added what he described as his Masonic signature - a pentagram which also occurs in his crest.

Papers collected by Sir Robert Southwell.

Papers of John Canton, principally comprising correspondence including 12 letters of Benjamin Franklin and letters from Joseph Priestley.