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DISCOVERY 



ever take the same interest in old books in their subject 

 as do the enthusiasts who collect first and early editions 

 of works of literature, for the scientist is necessarily too 

 much concerned with the present to care very much 

 about the past. A study of the history of his science must 

 lie left to leisure hours, and if there is awakened in him 

 an arch.Tological interest in his subject, such as is evinced 

 by a desire to collect old books about it, it is an interest 

 which is quite separate from, and not part of, his interest 

 in the facts of science. 



That a study of old books may be not merely interesting 

 and entertaining but stimulating and helpful also may 

 be very clearly proved by a perusal of this catalogue. 

 So wide an interest does it give a reader in the long and 

 distinguished past of the physical sciences that I have 

 no hesitation in saying it should be in the hands of every 

 lover of the sciences fortunate enough to have the means 

 of possessing it. These two volumes are a bookseller's 

 catalogue. Booksellers' catalogues have often been very 

 beautiful and interesting productions. These books are 

 a very beautiful and interesting production. They are a 

 sale catalogue arranged by authors' names of about 

 seventeen thousand books in Mathematics, Astronomy, 

 Physics, Chemistry, and one or tw-o other subjects. 

 Most of these are old books, but there is also a supplement 

 containing the names of new and up-to-date books. 

 Against each book is given the date of publication and 

 its present price. A description of the book, and in many 

 cases pithy and pawk^' remarks concerning it, are appended 

 to its name. Many of these notes deal with the historical 

 or archaeological interest of the book. 



If these volumes were only a catalogue of the usual 

 type, they would be of great interest, but the illustrations 

 make them still more valuable. They are facsimile 

 reproductions of letterpress, title-pages, wood-cuts and 

 diagrams, portraits and photographs, taken from the 

 rarer or more important works. These illustrations, we 

 are told, have been prepared by a photographic process. 

 Their production is singularly beautiful. There are 

 portraits of Newton ; Huygens, famous in optics ; 

 John Napier of Merchiston, a pioneer of logarithms ; 

 Torricelli ; Dr. Thomas Young, the discoverer of inter- 

 ference ; the Hon. Robert Boj'le (he crops up in every 

 historical scientific book) ; Faraday, Galileo, and Laplace. 

 A page of the first printed edition of Euclid's Elements 

 (1482) is reproduced ; four illustrations of Daguerre's 

 photographic apparatus from his book (1839) ; Hevelin's 

 map of the moon (1647) ; the title-page of an excessively 

 rare work of Kepler, giving the first two of his " three 

 laws " (1609) ; a drawing of the earliest practical electric 

 telegraph apparatus (invented by Sir Francis Ronalds, 

 1816) ; one of Ovenden's " new machine to go without 

 horses," an early forerunner of the bicycle (1774) ; a 

 page of Huygen's treatise on light, in which the author 

 propounded his theory of "elementary waves" which 

 enabled him to explain the reflexion and refraction of light 

 on the basis of the undulatory theory; the title-page of the 

 first issue of the first edition of one of the greatest works 

 on exact science ever published, Newton's Principia. 



Let us now look at the description and prices of some 



of the books themselves. For the best edition ol the 

 Principia eighteen guineas is asked. It is interesting to 

 note that the cost of the printing of this edition was Ixjrne 

 by Halley, the comet man. He edited it also and saw 

 it through the press. Samuel Pepys, the diarist, then, 

 if you please. President of the Royal Society, gave the 

 book the Society's imprimatur . The first edition became 

 rare almost immediately after publication, for a copy was 

 procurable, we are told, in 1691 only with great difficulty. 



Another book of about the same period, not of quite 

 the same scientific importance, but quainter, was Sir 

 Kenelm Digby's Of Bodies and of Man's Soul. To Dis- 

 cover the Immortality of Reasonable Souls with Tu.o Dis- 

 courses of the Powder of Sympathy and of the Vegetation 

 of Plants. 



Digby was an interesting type who first described 

 his " powder of sympathy " in a lecture which was sup- 

 posed to have been delivered at Montpellier in 1658. 

 The principle on which this " powder " worked was akin 

 to the w-ell-known method of catching a bird by apphing 

 salt to its tail. The powder healed a wound not, as 

 you might imagine, by its being applied thereto, but by 

 being kept away from it. The procedure was as f(,)llows : 

 A bandage which had encircled the wound was removed 

 from it and immersed in the powder, and kept there till 

 the wound was healed. Quite clearly, Digby was an 

 impostor, yet he seemed to have impressed James I and 

 others with its efficiency. 



Mr. Sotheran has also a fine copy of the excessively 

 rare original edition of Copernicus' work, On the Revolution 

 of the Heavenly Bodies. This work, which, to use the 

 optimistic phrase of the modern publisher, was certainly 

 " epoch-making," was completed in 1530, but not pub- 

 lished till the close of the author's life. In 1542 the poor 

 fellow was seized with apoplexy, and next year, just before 

 he died, the first printed copy of his book was brought 

 to him. He looked at it, touched it, and later expired. 



Many quaint works are described in this catalogue. 

 There were always plenty of authors, it seems, to rush 

 into print to demonstrate the accomplishments of a 

 successful perpetual-motion device, or to prove that the 

 earth is as flat as your hat. As early as 1532. Robert 

 Valturio published in Paris the details of a cannon for 

 hurling projectiles" round the corner " ! This is evidently 

 a lost art ! Ovenden's description of the machine which 

 travelled \\-ithout horses has many quaint touches. 

 This machine was " capable of travelling, with ease, 

 six miles in an hour ; and by a particular exertion of 

 the footman, might travel nine or ten miles an hour on a 

 good road, and even would go up a considerable hill." 

 The illustration shows that the master sat in front, while 

 the " footman " (appropriate name !) perspired behind. 



This catalogue, indeed, is a joy. Rich in biography of 

 great scientists, it touches lightly and even gaily on the 

 eccentricities of the past, yet rightly calls attention 

 to the really important books and the theories or dis- 

 coveries which they contain. It is scrupulously well 

 edited, and the illustrations are a perfect marvel of 

 delight. 



A. S. R. 



