1238 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO iS/S. 



ver)^ exact pocket watches, the nature and contrivance of which he imparted to 

 us, as he used to do other inventions of his, in an anagram ; which he soon 

 after in a letter of Feb. 20, l6^, explained to us by a full description ; for which 

 the Royal Society thought fit to return him thanks, yet so as to intimate to him, 

 that Mr. Hook had some years ago invented a watch of the like contrivance. 



Not long after this there came over, in the Journal des Scavans, a printed 

 description of M. Huygens's invention, with a delineation of the figure of the 

 same, which the editor of the Transactions produced at the public meeting of 

 the Royal Society ; where M. Hook not only saw it but took a copy of the 

 figure itself at the same time, unwilling to let the person who presented it there 

 take it home without permitting him first to copy it. Which done, M. 

 Huygens's explanation of his own way, with the figure of it, was, at his desire, 

 printed the lith of March l6^, in N° 112 of the Transactions; the describer 

 of the helioscope well knowing, that it was designed to be published in one of 

 those Tracts ; who, if he had given to the author of them the least intimation, 

 importing that he desired notice might be taken at the same time of his inven- 

 tion of the like kind, it would have been certainly done, as has been done on 

 other occasions, witness several of the same tracts, wherein divers discoveries 

 of this accuser have been formerly both printed, and vindicated from the 

 usurpation of others ; though indeed it was not necessary it should there be 

 done now, since the said animadversor could speak for himself in print as soon 

 as he pleased, as having laudably made use of late of the press for publishing 

 himself his own inventions. 



This is the plain truth of the matter, in which, whether there be any thing 

 on the part of the editor of the Transactions, that deserves that name of '^ un- 

 handsome proceedings," he very willingly leaves to all ingenuous readers to 

 judge: besides it might justly be considered, that pregnant and inventive heads, 

 well versed in mathematics and mechanics, and furnished with a genuine method 

 of investigation, may, and often do, fall upon the same discoveries and inven- 

 tions about the same time, especially if their minds have been long addicted to 

 and engaged in the same researches: of which, if there be occasion, several con- 

 siderable instances may be produced to verify the assertion. One of which, and 

 fit to be noticed at present, is, that when the editor of the Transactions lately 

 showed to the accuser that way of M. Leibnitz, concerning exact portable 

 watches, which was printed in N° 1 1 3 of these Tracts, he acknowledged that 

 though he had known that way too, ever since An. l66o, yet he never declared 

 it to any body, and therefore could not say M. Leibnitz had taken it from him. 

 Thus I shall dismiss him, not doubting, but that all candid readers will blame 

 him for the expression he uses p. 30 of his said postscript, which is, that he 



