'tis Notices respecting New Booh. 



Esq. ; H. Henncll, Esq. ; G. LoAve, Esq. ; Professor W. H. Miller ; 

 W. H. Pepys, Esq. ; R. Ponett, Esq. ; Dr. G. O. Rees. 

 The names of the gentlemen who had become members, in 

 number seventy-five, were then read. 



The Society then adjourned until Tuesday, the 13th of April. 



LXV. Notices respecting New Books. 



A Collection of Letters illustrative of the Progress of Science in 

 England from the Reign of Queen Elizabeth to that of Charles the 

 Second. Edited bj' Jamks Orchard Halliwell, Esq., F.R.S., 

 F.S.A., &c. 8vo. [Printed for the Historical Society of Science.] 



MANY of our readers are probably aware that a society has re- 

 cently been formed, on the joint-stock principle of the Camden 

 and a few other societies, for the purpose of printing documents con- 

 nected ■\nth the histoiy of the sciences, and forming by these means 

 a medium for the circulation of such information on that subject as 

 could scarcely be given to the world in any other way. The work 

 whose title we have given above is the first offspring of this newly- 

 established body ; and although it is not distinguished by any very 

 striliing novelty or the produce of any great change in our previous 

 knowledge of the history of science at the period to which it refers, 

 yet it not only offers very comprehensive views of the real state of 

 English science in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but also 

 affords us some verj"^ curious biographical infonnation respecting our 

 men of science during that time. It must above all be remembered, 

 that our only chance for obtaining works of this class is dej^endent 

 on the present or some similar plan, for there is no public encourage- 

 ment to print them ; no pubUsher of course would undertake their 

 publication, and the chance of a private person being reimbursed of 

 any sum he may have been hardy enough to have risked in the same 

 way is very small. Every lover of such researches wiU, therefore, we 

 think agree wdth us in commending any method by which we can 

 possess ourselves of a series of ijublications of this nature in an use- 

 ful form, and at a comparatively trifling expense. 



The " Historical Society of Science" has commenced its labours by 

 the pubhcation of a miscellaneous collection of letters on scientific 

 subjects, most of them hitherto inedited, from original manuscripts 

 preserved in various English libraries. Tliey are arranged in chro- 

 nological order, without any regard to the different subjects on which 

 they treat. The earliest letter in the volume is one from Eden, a 

 chemist, to Lord Burghley, written on August 1st, 1562, in which, 

 among other twaddle, he describes an operation by which he made a 

 whole quantity of silver ! The next is a curious relic of early En- 

 glish science, — a letter from Thomas Digges to Lord Burghley, dated 

 1574, on astronomical subjects. Then we have mechanical inven- 

 tions by Ralph Rabbards, a long letter from Dr.^Dee to Lord Burgh- 

 ley on the method of discovering hidden treasures, and one from 



