CATALOGUE 



OF A 



LOAN EXHIBITION OF EARLY 



SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS 



IN OXFORD 



MATHEMATICAL INSTRUMENTS 



1. Alabaster column, 22 inches high, with geometric solids and columns 



representing the five orders of Architecture. Probably iyth cent. 



Picture Gallery, Bodleian Library. 



2. Geometric Solid in boxwood. ? 1780. 



University Observatory. 

 Apparently of the period of Hornsby. 



3. A set of * Sollid Bodys '. Boxwood. 



Orrery Coll., 43. 



The set includes 3 tetrahedrons, 10 cubes of various sizes, 3 bi- 

 sected cubes, 5 quarters and i eighth of a cube, 2 octahedrons, 2 do- 

 decahedrons, 2 icosahedrons, 2 conic sections, and i dissected scalene 

 prism. 



4. Two 4-inch Spheres, bisected on the ecliptic. Beechwood. 



Saville Room, Bodleian Library. 



These two small wooden spheres are all that remains of the elaborate 

 instrumental outfit of the Savilian Professors which was kept in the 

 Cista Mathematica. The inventory was printed in the 1697 catalogue 

 of the Bodleian Library. 



The Sphere was an essential adjunct in education in Europe from 

 the days of Gerbert onward. 



'When Prince Henry was receiving instruction in mathematics from 

 Edmund Wright, the latter for the more easy information of the Prince 

 contrived a sphere of wood, about three quarters of a yard in diameter, which 



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