SURVEYOR AND TRUSTEE 35 
at Court, and commissioner appointed therefor. Ordered 
in Council the 4th day of February 1669. 
There is at least one direct reference to surveying in 
Leeuwenhoek’s writings, and it now acquires new significance 
in the light of the foregoing record. In the postscript to a 
letter written in 1713—containing some celebrated remarks 
on whales—he wrote: ' 
The height of the Tower of our New Church” was 
measured many years ago by me and the late Surveyor 
Spoors, each with his own quadrant, and found to be 299 
feet high 
For the year 1676 there is an entry in the Archives of Delft 
which illuminates Leeuwenhoek from an entirely different 
angle. Under date 30 September it is there recorded : ° 
Their Worships the Sheriffs of the Town of Delft do 
hereby appoint Anthonij Leeuwenhouck* to be Trustee ” 
for the estate and property of Catharina Bolnes, widow 
of the late Johannes Vermeer (in his lifetime Master 
Painter) and petitioner for a writ of insolvency,” for what 
he remained possessed of . . . Ordered the 30th of 
September 1676. 
Now the incomparable artist Jan Vermeer was born at 
Delft in the same year as Leeuwenhoek himself (1632), their 
' Send-brief IV, 14 March 1713. To Jan Meerman, Burgomaster of 
Delft. Published (Dutch) in Brieven, Vol. IV, p. 38; (Latin) Op. Omn. 
Vol. IV, p. 38. (No MS. and not in Phil. Trans.) 
* Visible in Vermeer’s view (Plate VII)—in the distance, to the right of 
the middle line. 
® Kamerboek der Stad Delft, 1671-1684: fide Obreen (1881-2), who has 
published the entry (p. 295) and from whose printed Dutch version I translate. 
* So spelled in original, fide Obreen. 
> Curateur orig. 
° Impetrante van mandement van cessie orig. These legal terms have no 
exact equivalents in modern English, though their meaning seems plain. 
According to Meijer’s Woordenschat (1745), impetrante = verkrijgster and 
mandement = bevel: while ‘‘mandement van cessie’’ is there explained as 
‘om zyne inschulders te mogen dagen’’, and “ Brieven van cessie’’ are defined 
as ‘ Brieven van Boedel afstand te mogen doen.” 
