The Construction and Principal Uses of Mathematical Instruments
London: Holland Press 1972. Reprint. [6],v-vii, [1 blank], [1]-325, [ads 1] pages. 30 plates. Publisher's black cloth. 9 1/4 x 14 inches. Corners bumped. Purple dj front panel has jagged tear near spine panel upper left, and is clipped lower right corner front flap. Minor fading to the spine panel of the dj. A bright copy otherwise. Sticker ghost to upper right hand front flyleaf. One of 500 copies printed. Near Fine / Good. Cloth. [21384]
A reprint of the second (and best) edition published in 1758. Includes a supplement containing a "further account of some of the most useful Mathematical Instruments as now improved." "The best illustrated account of the scientific instruments in use at the beginning of the XVIIIth centry, including the compass of proportion, surveying and astronomical instruments, the micrometer, a machine showing solar and lunar eclipses, etc. The whole of the VIIth [section] is on the construction and use of instruments for Navigation, includ. sea charts." (Weil, 32/141)
"Edmund Stone (1700-1768) published his first translation of Bion in 1723...In 1758 he published a further edition of the work in response to popular demand with 'A Supplement concerning a further account of some of the most useful Mathematickal Instruments as now Improved...This work gives the method of construction and the clearest possible description of the use of nearly every measuring and calculating instrument in use during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries...In my own experience it gives clearer and simpler solutions to problems of dialling, surveying and the applied mathematics than any other work to which I have easy access...It is obviously essential to Museums to historians and students, to collectors of mathematical instruments, to artisans and to such dealers as have the leisure and inclination to study their stock in trade from other than a purely mercantile point of view." (Peter Brophy in the Foreword)
Price: $100.00