BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE PRODROMUS 197 



contains 28 pages and a -reduced plate. The text is accompanied 

 by brief notes in Latin. This edition, like that of Beaumont, is 

 very incomplete. 



IV. TRANSLATIONS 



I . The Prodromus to a Dissertation Concerning Solids Naturally 

 Contained within Solids. Laying a Foundation for the Rendering 

 a Rational Accompt both of the Frame and the several Changes 

 of the Masse of the EARTH, as also of the various Productions 

 in the same- By Nicolaus Steno. English'd by H. O. London. 

 Printed by J. Winter, and are to be Sold by Moses Pitt at the 

 White-Hart in Little Brittain, 1671. 



This translation is a bibliographical rarity, as are all editions of 

 Steno. H. O. is undoubtedly Henry Oldenburg, who was elected 

 Secretary of the Royal Society, April 22, 1663, and continued to 

 act in that capacity until November 30, 1677, at a salary of forty 

 pounds a year.^ 



Maar^ mentions only the copies in the Royal Library of Copen- 

 hagen and the British Museum. There is also a copy in the Library 

 of the Geological Society, London, and another in the Harvard 

 University Library. It is odd that the Royal Society should not 

 have been presented with a copy by the author; possibly one may 

 have been presented, and lost. The British Museum copy is imper- 

 fect, the plate being lacking. The page facing the preface bears the 

 name fos. Banks. This can be no other than Sir Joseph Banks, 

 the celebrated English naturalist, who became President of the 



1 See Record of Royal Society, 3d ed., 1912, p. 207; and Birch, History of the Royal 

 Society, Vol. II (1756), p. 376. Oldenburg was succeeded by Robert Hooke. Under the 

 date of June 25, 1667, Samuel Pepys remarks: "I was told, yesterday, that Mr. Oldenburg, 

 our Secretary at Gresham College, is put into the Tower, for writing news to a virtuoso in 

 France, with whom he constantly corresponds in philosophical matters ; which makes it very 

 unsafe at this time to write, or almost do any thing." And again, under date of April 30, 

 1669: "This morning I did visit Mr. Oldenburgh, and did see the instrument for perspective 

 made by Dr. Wren, of which I have one making by Browne ; and the sight of this do please 

 me mightily." 



For the records of Oldenburg's arrest on June 20, 1667, and his release on August 26 of the 

 same year by orders of Charles II, see C. R. Weld, History of the Royal Society, London, 

 1848 vol. I, pp. 201-204. An account of Oldenburg's life may be found ibid., pp. ii,q-i(si. 



A brief notice of the H. O. edition was contributed, probably by Oldenburg himself, to the 

 Royal Society. See Philosophical Transactions, vol. VI (1671), p. 2179 ff. ; Abridged Edi- 

 tion of Philosophical Transactions, vol. I (1665-1672), London, 1809, pp. 605, 606. 



2 Opera Philosophica, Vol. II, p. 356- 



