Abstract
MESSRS. HENRY SOTHERAN, LTD., have now issued part 2 of their Catalogue of Science and Technology, No. 3, an annotated and classified list of old, rare and standard works on “Exact and Applied Science”. This part enumerates books on mechanical and electrical engineering, conveniently arranged in appropriate sections, and includes publications throughout the period from the beginning of the sixteenth century down to recent years. Many famous volumes are mentioned such as Papin's “New Digester” (1681) and the quaintly bombastic “Century of the Names and Scantlings of such Inventions as at present I can call to mind to have tried and perfected” of Edward Somerset, second Marquis of Worcester, whose work, if inclined towards perpetual motion, was genuinely moving in the direction of the steam engine. Gilbert's “de Magnete” (1600) is of great interest not only as being in Lord Kelvin's view “one of the finest examples of inductive philosophy that has ever been presented to the world”, but also in that it contains the rarest of all autographs of men of science, that of Gilbert himself, the father of electrical science. Napier's “Descriptio” (1614) and Newton's “Principia” (1687) are represented by first editions. As many of these books have been the possessions of outstanding men of science, their notes are of peculiar value. A copy of Silvanus Thompson's “Dynamo-Electric Machinery” (1886) is enriched “with very numerous MS. notes (often severely critical and sometimes sarcastic) by Oliver Heaviside, F.R.S.”.
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Rare and Standard Books on Engineering. Nature 137, 229 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/137229c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/137229c0