Scientific Inst~ ument Society

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Bulletin March No. 64 2000 Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society ISSN0956-8271

For Table of Contents, see back cover

President Gerard l'urner Vice-President Howard Dawes

Honorary Committee Stuart Talbot, Chairman Gloria Cl|fton,.Secreta~. Jt~m Didcock, Treasurer Willem Hackmann, Editor James Stratton, Meetings Secreta~. Silke Ackermann Ron Bristow Simon Cheifetz Alexander Crum-Ewing Liba Tauh Trevor Waterman

Membership and Administrative Matters The Executive Officer (Wg Cdr Geoffrey Bennett) 31 High Street Stanford in the Vale Fanngdon Tel: 01367 710223 Oxon SN7 8LH Fax: 01367 718963 e-mail: [email protected] See outside back cot~r for information on membershzp

Editorial Matters Dr. Willem D. Hackrnann Museum of the History of Science Old Ashmolean Building ]'el: 01865 277282 (office) Broad Street Fax: 01865 277288 Oxford OXI 3AZ Tel" 01008 811110 (home) e-mail: [email protected] Society's Website http: / / www.sLs.org.uk Advertising See 'Summary of Advertising Services' panel elsewhere in this Bulletin. Further enquiries to the Executive Officer. Organization of Meetings Mr James Stratton 101 New Bond Street Tel: 020 7629 6602 I.x~ndon WIY 0AS Fax: 020 7495 3536

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:B The Scientific Insmunent Society 2000

i Editorial

Solid Objects Viflual Reality 'To err is human but to really foul things up requtrt~ a computer' Farmers' Almanac for 1978

It u~d to be ~id that the Bulletin concentrated too much on early classical instruments. Our December 1999 'Millen- nium Issue' should truly have buried this old chestnut. We endeavour to cover all aspects of instrument history, from all perk,s, all types of instruments, and cover the interestof all parties from every source: private collectors, museums, dealers, auction houses, and increasingly, from the virtual space of the computer. Most of our material still comes from traditional sources, but astute readers will have observed that more and more 'www' addresses are appearing in these pages ever since Desmond Squire's 'Buying & Se]l!ngScientific [nstruments on the Internet, the Market Place feature of Bulletin, No. 57 (June 1998). However, we have hardly touched the surface of this new technology, nor can we yet fully appreciate the changes it will bring about. I suspect that not many t~giay would agree with the Farmers" Almanac for 1978. Computers have become an Fig.l Profi',,~,r loire North dela'ermy, the Fig.2 lerem~ Collins pr,.'~'ntmg a .,;el of indispen~hle part of our culture and of Society's sez~enth Annncr~ Lecture at the h,und CSK Catah~ues to Hou~rd Dawes at everyday life. Societies of Antiquaries. the SIS Committee's dinner on 30th No, win- bet at the Tr,nwllers" Club. The virtual auctioneers Ebay at www.e- bav.com cover an enormous range of ct,[lectibles They are so successful that the deadline there ts a tremendous rush Lecture brought the year to a climactic they now have an English site as well. and bids can rise steeply. This is close. Professor John North's scholarly ~t'h .~pecialist collector groups and the especially so for desirable items and lecture on the astrolabe and the imagli~- traditional auction houses are carefully some 'virtual bidders' have become past tion (Fig. 1) is reproduced in this issue. He fidlowing the progrt~s of Ebay and other masters at this game of ne~'es. Com- was awarded the Society's medal at the virtual auctioneers. In fact, Auction- bined with the fact that these deadlines SIS Committee's dinner held after the Watch.corn claims that it now monitors often occur at the dead of night or in the lecture. The dinner was also the opportu- over three hundred auction sites. It has small hours of the morning, bidding on nity at which Jeremy Colhns of Christie's al,~ become the fashion for any ~lf- the lnternet can not only be bad for the presented a set of Ix~und South Ken.sing- rt~pecting society or collector-group to blca~ pressure but aL~ cau~ sleepless ton Sales Catalogues to the ."k~cietv's have a personalized webpage. We can nights. One of the pleasures of a real archives. Howard Dawes, the Socie6"s find such pages devoted to anything that auction is that the object of the heart's Vice-President, received them on our is of mtert~t to somebody from Kitmaster desire can be handled and examined behalf (Fig. 2). These catalogues are not plastic toys and antique combs to Guin- carefully This is not possible with virtual only a remarkable record of the ve~' fine ness bottles and radios (.see for example auctions, and this can be a real drawback. instruments that have gone through the the experimental 'Collector Fair On-Line' A picture may be better than a thou~nd Christie's South Kensington ~lesroom in this issue). The SIS has, of course, words but they can certainly lie, and with since Jeremy Collins has been in charge, }oined the trend and now maintains an the potential of computer graphic en- but the,,' have aL,~ become an extremely effective website which has already hancement they can tell real whoppers. u~ful source of reformation for ~hola~ attracted new members. The large estab- Virtual aucti(~ns can be apleasant and collectors. Jeremy Collins's aim to lished auction hou~ are also retaliating pastime but have to be handledrealisti- have the mMruments meUculouslv re- (or staying in the market depending on cally, for when the items arrive on the corded by photograph and detaded your point of view) by developing their doorstep they have hen transformed descriptions, often written by specialists, own computer-auctions websites. How from the virtual to the solid. has been so successful that these auction this will afftwt the market and collecting catalogues have become the benchmark That 1999 continued to be an active )'ear of historical instruments in the future Ls to follow. for the Society is amply shown in these hard to predict. Will the collector of the ages. Two o{ the events are reported on mid-21" century still enjoy the pleasure of Addendum re by Peter de Clercq: the study after- browsing in well-stocked antique shops, noon on electroforming which t<~k place Two errors occurred m Paolo Brenni's or make discoveries in small local auc- at the British Museum on 29'" (.X't~er, paper in the previous Bulletin. The first tmns far from the metro~dis? Or will he and the XVill Scientific Instrument Sym- one should have been Sl~tted by the spent his time pushing computer buttons ~Sium in M(~cow and St Petersburg Editor, but because it was so obvious his and surfing virtual spaces? ~r ~m 20'~-25'h September. At the St eyes glazed over it. The name of this There are pitfalls when buying historical Petersburg Ob~rvatory delegates ~w famous designer of the electrostatic instruments via the internet. One finds ,~htti with instruments of which Sarah generator that bears his name is, of that there is often little bidding for a echner t~k some fine photographs. course, Van de Graaff and not Van de particular item for days until suddenly These form the subject otthis 'Cover Gram Furthermore, in note 35 the name during the last ten minutes or so before Story'. The Socie~'s 7" Annual Invitation should be Dr I_x~rente and not I_x~nente.

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Bulb.tin ,,I the' ~ I~,'llttht In-trnmt.nt "~,zt.t~ \o ~,-I q2tltq)} The Annual Invitation Lecture The Astrolabe and the Imagination John North

The days art, g, me when every acc, mnt of Byzantine asmdabe, made by a Persian such as Marco Polo's dubious rel~rt of an astmlahe had to be prefixed with an c¢msul and dated effectively at 1062 AI), the astrolabe's use in Peking, in the late essay tm the history of the instrument begins with these words: thirteenth century, or Sir John de Man- and its u~, although there is still n,,m deville's account, written around 1397, of t~m,ugh for di.~=greernent, even (m the (This is) an image manifest of the heaven's i~ use by the ~holars at the court of qm.,stkm of the instrument's main pur- m4wements Kublai Khan.' p,~,e. In its hey-day, the irt~,~rument was a Making distinct and clear the course of the ~ar~, tangible image of the m=weable heavens, YIm would pn~bably not have ownecl but that could mean man)' things, The changing of the .,,ea.~)ns and the p&,*sagt.,s of the times.. ~ your own instrument, but you are likely ranging from a vague symbol tn a precise to have known others rm~re (k'dicated to ~t of geometrical relationships, its It would be hard to put the case fiw this astr(m~my who did, and you would have c,~rnputatkmal virtues are plain enough, recognized that the astrofahe was m a but taking the typical medieval hand- particular type of symbolism more ,,~accinctly, and it forms a fitting backdrop very real ~en~, much more than a I~.)k ,m the astndabe at its face value, it I~)rtable instrument. By the end of the was ai,~ oftt~ rt14arded as an instrument to a literary example ! shall introduce at a later stage. Middle Ages, most ordinal, People in for ¢"dm~vatitm. This is open to ambi- the neighl~mrh,a,d of large churches guity if we fail to distinguish carefully The theoretical abstracti~m needed to w(mld have seen an astrolabe in the form between ot~ervatkms of passing inter- of a ck~ck dial- although, needless to t.'st - as when the aim is to measure time handle an astndabe should not be under- estimated, but it was .~mething that say, very. few wtmld have been able to it.self - and fundamental ol~ervati(ms of read that dial in a meaningful way, relatively king-lasting interest. ]'here are eve.ry university student in the medieval arts faculties was obliged to study. He Mechanical clockwork had by now th,~ who go .~, far as to dismiss all such replaced water as the driving f~rce of traditi~mal a~umptkms, insisting rather learned to l~ititm the star map (the fete) correctly with resl~*ct to the local horiz(m such m,mumental astn~labes. The trart,~i- that the astrolabe was rarely rmme than a ti(m required the inventi, m of a mechan- pedagogical device. That stnmg thesis and ma=ridian, m~t to ~y the many other c~,~rdinate lines that were regarded as ical escapement, and t,a~k place in the t~vi~mslv cannt,t rule out the traditumal last quarter of the fourteenth centu~', alternativt.,s completely, but it (k~s at fixed in the heavens. From his text- I~a~k - ~pically that by Sacmb,~co - he perhaps in East Anglia. The oldest least make us aware of the fact that the mechanical ck~'k of which we have any astmlahe had u.,~e~ that changed with learned the meaning of the two tw three circk.'s (m his rete, the rm~t notabk, being detailed knowk~Jge was that built for his historical period and per~mal circum- abbey by Richard of Wallingford, Oxford stant'e. the ecliptic, the path of the Sun through the stars. And to help his imaginati,m ~hoiar and abbot of ~ Albans (d. 13~). akmg, in the astr¢momy ~h, adnx~m, he it had an astn~labe dial with Sun and the astndabe had a symbolic vahw too. was provided with quotati¢ms from the M,~m geared to move automatically and Its complexity and rarity made it a classical Latin I~ets. Not many of us now accurately through the ecliptic, even to symbol of wealth, status and good taste know the n~,aning of 'chnmic ~,tting', allow eclipses to be represented. A on the part of its I~.~,~w, and perhaps and we should be nont, the wi~,r if we l~'ture in St Albans in the fourteenth even a sym~d of intelligence (m the part were given this line of Lucan to help us, century would have required no prl~ec- of an owm,r who could actually use it. reminding us that ~mly ont, F~)le is visible hw, for there, high on the wall of the .~mth tran.~,pt, you would have had all And then came about its (ks-lint,. At the at a time: tail end of its history it was often You nt,tx|ed to visualize gt~wnetrically intn~|uced into situations far removed Then the .~hort night .,,hot The.,,salian quite complex astnmomical situations. from its original purl~,e. Manv a sli(k~- arn~%v.~... The .~me would have been p~s~ble at rule has heen reduced to the indignity of Wt.,stminster, St Paul's, or 1Aind~,r The ruling line~, and the astrolabe's fate was It is unlikely that our memories would be ver~' fact that tht~, ch~'ks, w~th their of the .~ma, order when it was u~'d by ~ed on ~ther astronomical points by astrolabe dials, were to be viewed by Renais.~nt'e sun'eyors, for instant'e, to lines of Virgil, such as I~king towards the ~mth, the dsrection n~easure the heights of towers, the depths of the culmination of the heavenly of wells, the triangulation of land, and rhi~, vertex Is ever a[~we u',. but that t~li~.,s, .,,upport.,, the idea that they at the like. (;raduated .~'ak.'s were not l)ark ~vx and deep Marw~ I~dd t~,ath least were svmt~,ls of the umx er~,. ~,mething ~me hmght off the shelf in our Wet[-' the remoter past, but to speak of the Chaucer astndabe as a symbol is to conjure up lhe world of the n~'dieval astrolabist much more than an image of a pmto- was clearly very far removed from that of lhe~, London ch~'ks pro~ ide one hkeh th~lolite. Whatever their ultimate pur- I.h~rgu~.'s anttSteint, r, but let us not read context h,r certain flems in the Im,etr.v ot p~.'s, m,~t of th,~' who in the middle th~.'~, referenct.'s as an exerci~' in pedan- l~.,otfrcv Chaucer, notahh in ht,~ l',mt,'r- agt..s held an astmlahe in their hands In,'. I'o the ordinary na'dieval student in I,uru fi,l,'~, lhat he had a deep mtere,,t ,n must have heen con.,~.'ious that they were arts, Lucan antt Vir'gil were pure sugar on the' ordinary a.qrola[~, is well known- holding an image of the univer~, it,,If. a rather bitter astronomical pill. indeed, he ~'rote what until rtx'enth wa,, lhe notion chimed Perfectly with the the onh" rt.~ptx'tabh, treah~, m Fngli,,h on idea of man as a micn~ct~sm of the larger ~ much fi~r the basic astnmom~,: As an that instrument. }h, wrote it for his h,n- c,~mos, the macn~c,~m. [he very word educated per~m in the later Middle Ages" year old .~m h, wis, and at ~n,ae ~,tage in 'icon' ~:l~(,)v-image, or reprt,,~'lntati,m) you would have been well aware of its histOl'V a waggi~,h .~'rl~,, who no was u.,~'d to (k.'~'ribe ,me of the ol(k.'~t w~.'stern in(k~k,dnt.'ss to the world of doubt lelt out of his depth, addtxl to it a,~ dated astrolab~.,s known, in a .~'t of Islam for astrolabe practice as such You the ~ubtitle the words 'Bread and Milk iambic ver~.,s actually engraved ¢m the might even have heard of traveller¢ tales for Children'. i he astrolabe is mentioned instrument, l'he (;r¢~,k text on this that had the astmlahe worked into them, explicitly in the 'Miller's lale', where the

Bulk=fin of the ."~-i¢~ti~- In,~trument ~'~¢~" No. ~ (2(IW)) Oxford Clerk Nicholas is portrayed as an instance in 1378 he visited Italy again, of the geared planetaria that made up an outwardly meek and private person, in now on a secret migsion (on behalf of the important line in the ancestry of the whose rt~0~nnyou would find, with other new king Richard 1I) to the court of mechanical clock, and it is hard to avoid books large and small, a copy of Bemabo Vis~xmti, duke of Milan. This the feeling that Chaucer had some such Ptolemy's Alma c,est and an astrolabe.= visit is of great I~tential interest, for the device in mind. We are told that the horse There are manv other indications in Vi~tmti had acquired the astrarium of could carry you wherever you wanted to Chaucer's oeuvre that he was extremeh: Giovanni de' 12kmdi, that fine astnmom- go in the space of a natural day, 24 hours. fond of astronomical allegory, and it ical clock with its seven dials (in asm~labe Its maker refers to the operations of should not surpri~ us to find that the pn~ction) that was one of the w~mders natural magic, and the need to wait for astrolabe in one form or another played a of the Italian world at the time. The the moment at which the stars were part in them. It g(a,s without ~ving that I~ssihility that Chaucer saw it is again an placed propitiously. As we all know, the wherever an astronomical situatitm Ls intriguing one. jack-work of mechanical clocks often described, there is the fa~sibili~"that an included horsemen: they might be made astrolabe was u..~d to help develop it. Chaucer's gt~d fortune did not endure, to joust, for example, on the hour, as in the There art, ~'o tales in particular, how- but rose and fell with the fortunes of his clock at Wells. It is quite possible that the ever. where the evidence for the didactic patron the king, Richard lI. He lived to members of Chaucer's audience knew of use of the instrument is very strong. One see Richard dep~ "~-,d m 1399, but he an example in which the steed circled the of them is m the prologue to the Pars4m's himself died in the following year. sky in twenty-four hours. Some of the ]'aleand the other is in the Squire's Tale, astonished guests in the tale thought that and I have cht~n to deal with the second The Squire's Tale the horse resembled Pegasus, hinting of these since it is the more graphic. But surely at the constellation of that name. firsta few biographical remarLs, since it it is abundantly clear from his writings While there is no evidence whatsoever for L~ unlikely that everyone here is familiar generally that Chaucer took an intellec- the idea that Chaucer explained to his with Cha'ucer's carter. tual pleasure fi'om astronomy, and that audience the finer points of his astronom- he used it to add a hidden dimension of ical verse, he could have had nothing Geoffrey Chaucer was born into a pros- meaning to his fa~e~.' This is something gin)re suited to his purposes than a large perous family of wine merchants in the that one must work hard at to extract,but astronomical timepiece, with its dial any- early 134~h, and was brought up in is certainly not illusory, and in 'The thing between two and six feetacross as at [x~ndon in a cosmopolitan socie~; as a Squire's Tale' it is closer to the surface Old Saint Paul's, Windsor Castle, and neighbour of French, Italian and Flemish than most. This is a romantic tale in Westminster Palace - to mention again just merchant families. He must have had oriental guise, told by an impetuous three places frequented by the poet. some formal education, and since he young squire about the family of the shows a sound knowledge of several potentate Cambyuskan. The noble king The prattling of the guests over the four Latin authors in his p<~'y, it seems likely Cambyuskan lived 'At Sarray, in the land gifts continued until the king rose from that he attended one of the London of Tartarye' (line 9). It is generally the table. The astronomy in the tale now grammar schools. His knowledge of the supFa~.~-'d that the intended king was begins in earnest. The Sun had left the world came to him more directly, first as a Genghis Khan, founder of the Mongol meridian, the royal Lion and its star young page in the service of Elizabeth, Empire two centuries before Chaucer's Aldiran were ascending. The minstrels Countess of Ulster - she was the king's day. According to Chaucer's story, Cam- played, and the guests, children of Venus, daughter-in-law - and then with her hus- byuskan's queen Elpheta had borne him danced, while in the Fish their lady sat band, Prince Lionel, whilst he was in the two sons (Algarsyf and C_ambalo) and a full high and looked favourably on them. wars in France. Chaucer was only a youth daughter Canacee. After twenty years on While the king is on his throne the when he was captured by the French. the throne, Cambyuskan celebrated his stranger knight is brought in and dances After only a short period of captivity he birthday, and Chaucer tells us where in with Canacee. was ran.,~'~med by the English king (1.360). the zodiac the Sun was at the time - it tie was kicking" his heels at the French was near its exaltation, in a face of Mars, A planet is when court at a time when Pelerin de Prusse 'on its throne',on high, in his mansion in Aries. In ordinary in its exaltati~m, and this is surely where was there, a man who wrote a vernacular language, the date is 15 March, but it is Venus ks now to be found. We know treahse on the astrolabe (in French, which clear that in some strong sense Cambyus- was not his native tongue) as Chaucer where the Sun is, since Chaucer has just kan was meant to be as~ciated with the told us, and it is a simple matter to show was later to do thirty years later. There is warrior planet Mars. The king was no reason to link the two, but the - with an astrolabe if you have one - that sitting on his dais, in his palace, when exaltation of Fa~s.',ibili~" remains an intriguing one. the Venus is only two or after the third course of the meal, as he three degrees below her highest point in listened to the playing of his minstrels, a the sky. That makes a good start, but Chaucer's worldly experience was ob- strange knight on a steed of brass why, of all the stars in the constellationof viously more than that of the ordinary interrupted the feast. The knight bore the Lion, did Chaucer single out for man of letters. When still in his early four magic girls: the flying brass steed mention the fifthbrightest, Aldiran? twenties, after marrying, he entered the itself for the king; a sword that could slice nwal hou.,~hold and was sent on a through armour and also heal the The most natural explanation is that its number of missions overseas, especially wounds it made; and for the princess in Italy. At one time or another he position in the sky at the moment in Canacee a magic mirror and a magic ring question was astronomically significant. probabiy studied some law at the Inner (lines 80-167). Temple. in 1374, Edward Ill made him a In fact when Aldiran was (m the horizon, controller of customs in the port of at a ~mdon latitude, then in round From our present narrow perspective,the figures, the Sun was less than six degrees London, and he remained there for steed is the most intriguingof these gifts. tweh'e years, the busiest of his life. it from the meridian (m the date in question [t was sent by the liege lord of the knight, (15 March). ]t is very unlikely that the was m thcv.~e twelve hectic years that 'the king of Arabe and of Inde' (line II0), Chaucer wrote his finest work, p<~etry for relatively unimportant star Aldiran was reminding us of a long and well-justified on the rete of his portable astrolabe, which he was receiving growing recogni- reputation of the Arabs and Persians for tion. He continued to travel abroad - for although its fa~sition there could have ingenious mechanical devices. One thinks been roughly indicated to an audience.

Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Sm~=ty No. 64 (2000) Si.. it5 ~.-,,J~l t6~"w@6

Fig.2 A small section of a u~dcut star map of the northern hemisphere, done by. Albrecht Durer for a broadsheet published in Nuremberg, 1515. Conrad Heinzs~el positioned the stars and Johannes Stabius directed the enterpri~. Relet~ant to "The Squire's Tale' are Pegasus, the knot in the fishing line, the fish on the right- Fig.1 The arrangement of the planets as it uvuld hat¢ been d~ra,n hand end of it, and the star representing Canacee (nearest on the line on an astrolabe or astrolabe clock, as Mars (Cambyuskan) leazcs the to the "i' of "Pi~es'). There are late mediez~al precedents fi~r this, meridian (his boardL He is surn~unded ~ his planeta~, family as although they. are u~nting in DUrer's artistic flair. explained in the text. (Here they. are all "drawn as though of zero ecliptic latitude, u,hich is not far from the truth.) The ecliptic/zodiac circle has some of the dwisions marked, but only numerically (frtnn Theodora; and to the story of Cambalo, h,agitude .3,~" to 0" is the sign of Pi~es, 0 ° to 3(?' is the sign of Aries, who fought in the lists with the two and so on). Aldiran, just rising, is marked by. a circle. Eipheta, the star brothers to win Canacee. Of this unnatur- that shares the name of Cambyu.cAcan's wife. is also sh~ru,n with a al contest I shall say more in a moment. circh'. The crosses are the most common astrolabe stars, drawn for Chaucer~ time, but here unlabelled. The horizon line is drawn Apart from explicit references to the correctly for the latitude of London. heavens there are some ambiguous re- marks that ! think indicate astrological exaltations or domiciles. Venus is 'ful Chaucer was more probably calculating ingly relevant is not diminished by the bye', and as i have already said, i the rising of the star, but even if that were thought that automata on clocks often presume that she was in her exaltation, so, Aldiran might easily have been emerged from the ca~, and subsequently or very near to it. Cambyuskan was also painted on the star map of an astrolabe returned, thereby becoming invisible. 'ful bye' as he rose from his dinner table, ch~-k. On many a clock, the roles of the and we know beyond all doubt that Aries conventional fete and plate were inter- From this point on, 'The Squire's Tale' was then more or less culminating, so the changed, and as for the number of stars changes scene. The stranger knight, with link with the domicile of Mars seems on a solid plate, the sky's the limit. all his magic, is lost to view, but we are very probable. The date within the year, Notice, by the way, that the name of left with a series of time-references, and as I said earlier, was 15 March and there Cambyuskan's wife, Eipheta, is the name references to the rising Sun, which is only a single year within the span of of a star (:t Coronae Borealis). strongly suggests that the underlying Chaucer's wnting career that fits these astronomical ~heme continues. criteria, namely 1383. Around nta~n on 15 The first part of the Squire's story ends March 1383, the planet Mars is so near to with an account of how the stranger Exhausted from the day's affairs, and the meridian as Aldiran rises that we knight demonstrated to the king his way having drunk a great deal, all but Canacee may be morally certain that its leaving of governing the horse. It was all done slept soundly until 'pryme large', nine the meridian is the analogue of Cam- with the help of a pin in the horse's ear. Is o'clock. Canacee dreamed of her gifts, her byuskan's leaving his table. If we take that not the very thing one finds at the mirror and her ring, and being anxious to Mars' leaving the mend/an as our datum, centre of an astrolabe or astrolabe clock, try them out, rose before the Sun, to be Aldiran and the Mta~n are rising and the pegging the disks t(~gether? The horse joined s(x~n by ten or twelve companions. time is more or less 1 o'clock. could trip and dance, it could carry the With a newly found abili .ty to understand king to whatever place he named, even the language of the birds, Canacee ]'his is a beauhfullv symmetrical scheme. vanish from sight. In fact it did jtLstthis at conversed with a female falcon that had It does not represent an arrangement that the end of the first part of the tale, been badly treated by its lover. Taking the could ever have been (~served - for we leaving the Squire with a solitary final falcon home, Canacee nursed her back to are in the middle of the day. All of the remark to the effect that Cambyuskan's health. But this is girls' stuff, and the planets are gathered together in about feasting went on until day-break. The impetuous young Squire wants to move one fifth part of the ecliptic. As Mars sits feeling that Chaucer's audience might on to more exciting things, to the at the table, so to speak, facing us from have been aware of some mechanical adventures and battles of Cambyuskan, the meridian, Jupiter and Saturn are to device to which this account was amus- of Aigarsyf his son, who has a wife his right (stillrising, east of south), the

Bulletin of the Sc~mh~ Instrument Society No. 64 (20(10) Sun is at his left hand, and Venus and that Chaucer was amusing himself with the Squire's exuberant tale was leading. Mercury also to his left and beyond the the thought of the star on the knot, when The young man's story was not going to Sun. In the order of their setting, to he spoke at this point of 'The knotte why be fit material for pilgrims. emphasize this point, they are: Mercury, that every tale is toold', the knot being Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and finally the point or moral of the story and also a There have been sporadic attempts to Saturn. The arrangement is shown in star in the sky. The bright star on the knot identify literary parallels with 'The Fig. I, drawn as a skeletal representation rises above the horizon after all the Squire's Tale', none of them very success- of what would have appeared on an thirteen stars in the fishing lines. In other ful. It should by now be obvious why no ordinary astrolabe. words - to quote the Tale again- it comprehensive source is ever likely to be makes 'of hir walkyng soone an ende'. found. With the exception of the middle Mars is Camb)~iskan. Elpheta, if she is to (The knot is near the name 'Aries' on part (a story told by a falcon) the work is be associated with the star of that name, l~rer's woodcut.) so thoroughly formed by its astronomical is in Scorpio, a mansaon afMars well away structure for a particular set of dates and from her hushand's side. One might ,say The Squire tells us remarkably little of the times that its uniqueness is assured. Only that she sits opposite him, or possibly at older brother Algarsyf, although promis- a poet with Chaucer's astronomical his feet. The steed of brass we are told ing to do so later. We know that he rides expertise could have written it. shone like the Sun. If the horse was the steed, and if our inferences are Pegasus, then it is noteworthy that the correct, and he is Jupiter, then we might How much of the astronomical structure Sun was in the vicinity of the constella- expect to find Jupiter on the back of was known to Chaucer's audience? it tion on the day in question. It is a rather Pegasus. He has just passed Pegasus on should be quite clear that most of his extensive constellation, but the long- his curn~nt circuit of the zodiac, and will auditors could have known nothing itudes of its four brightest stars place not be there again in Chaucer's lifetime. without careful prior instruction. We the planets with the horse at the time in There is in fact reason to think that the have no way of knowing whether such question. ~ In Fig. 2, taken from Albrecht name Algarsyf was suggested by the instruction was ever given, but if it was, Durer's star map of the northern hemi- name of a lunar mansion in Pisces, within then it is highly probable that an sphere, Pegasus occupies a prominent which are stars from the constellation of astrolabe or an astrolabe-clock was used position, and its relation to the constella- Pegasus. to help along the imagination of the tion and sign of Aries can be easily audience. My only regret is that the old appreciated. (Precession between Chau- Incest Westminster clock is no longer available cer's time and Durer's makes only a to help along our own. difference of about a degree in long- The second part of Tale comes to an end itude). with the Squire's promise to tell of how Notes and References Cambalo fights with 'the' two brothers Pegausus and the Knot for Canacee. The only way of avoiding I. O. M Dalton, 'The Byzantine astrolabe at the implication of incest here is to say Brescia', Proceedin~ of the British Academy, Suppt~se now that Canacee can be made that this was another Cambalo, and not 1926, pp. 1-14, at p. 5. The iambics are on the the analogue of a star or planet, so that her brother, it has been suggested that outer nm of the l~e4e. The maker was 'Sergius, her retiring to bed and rising are this hint of an oriental incest motif protospatharios, consul and man of science' analogous to the setting and rising of a persuaded Chaucer to quit the story. and the date "July, fifteenth indiction, year celestial body. The text suggest that she Tht~se who believe this do not explain 6570'. When I spoke to the Society (30th November 1990) the instrument was actually retired to bed lust after sunset and rose why he did not simply cross out the line, on k~an to the National Maritime Museun~, iust before sunrise. If Canacee had been and allow the story to move in another represented by a planet she could not Greenwich, for the Millennium Time Exhibi- direction. At all events, the third part tion. have been thought to behave in this way, lasts for only two lines, before the Squire but with other stars such behaviour is is interrupted in mid-sentence by the 2. L. Thorndike, ed. & trans., The Sphere of quite i~ssible. The brightest of four stars Franklin. It reads as follows: Sacr0b0sco (Chicago, lOA9), pp. 130, 124. in Pi~es mirrors Canacee's pattern of behaviour, and what then becomes so Apollo whirleth up his chaar so hye, 3. F(w convenient secondary references see extremely fitting is that it is joined with a ril that the god Mercunus hous, Rodenck and Mar~wie Webster, WesternAstro- ¢,roup of tuWz~ others in Ptolemy's list. In the slye ...(lines 671-2) /abes (Chicago, 1998), pp. 4, 13. lines 382-92 of the Tale, Canacee's 'ma~stresse' summons the women, and Assuming the same year as before, we 4. Lines 3208-9. 'up they rvsen, wel a ten or twelve', but can say that the Sun reached Gemini at as she walks forth, it is 'nat but with fyve about half past eight in the morning on 5. A book-length study of Chaucer's alle- or sixe of hir meynee'. This is an entirely gory is my Chaucer's Unitwse (Oxford Uni- 13 May 1383, at which moment Saturn versity Press, 2ncl ed. 1990), where more detail accurate account of what happens with and Venus uvre in almost preci~ conjunc- the stars among which Canacee's is will be found on the Squlre's Tale than I can ture (they were only 12 minutes of arc include here. I have written various short found They are the stars forming the apart) in the presence of the Sun. There are items smce, but on Chaucer's use of astrolabe fishing line, that joins the fishes in the astrological texts in plenty to support the imagery the most significant add|tkn~ con- constellation of Pi~es. Again this will be idea that such an arrangement indicates ceres the prologue to the Parson's Tale, which I easily appreciated from Di~rer's wood- an incestuous relationship, although not now suspect hehmgs to 1400, the year of cut. (Venus has a longitude that puts her specifically between brother and sister. Chaucer's death. adiacent to one of the fishes, which The planets on that day spelled out a would perfectly explain why in the l~em message of incest. They did so, of course, 6. Ptolemy calls the constellationof Pegasus Venus is said to be present in 'the Fy~h', only 'to him that could it know'. Whether simply 'the horse', but in his catalogue it is rather than in 'the Fysshes'.) wmged, and the horse Pegasus was undoubt- or not the Franklin was such a person, edly in his mind. this astrological reading introduces a The fishing line joins up the thirteen surprising perspective on the incomplete- Author's address: stars, that is, the womenfolk, and is ness of "The Squire's Tale'. The Franklin knotted at a fourteenth, i have no doubt 28 ClullfontRoad interrupted because he could see where Oxford OX2 6TH

Bulletin of the ScientificInstrument Society No. 64 (2000) J Calendar Systems and Perpetual Calendars Part 3: Descriptions of Calendars Mike Cowham

Some of the descriptions below refer to illustrationsused earlierin Parts I & 2.

Ivory Ditpytch Dial by Paulus Reinman dated 1598

This calendar (Part 2, Figs.l & 2) is typical of those found on many Nurem- berg ivory diptych dials. The outer two rings are labelled 'EPACTA ]VLIA ANNO 1598' and EPACTA GREGO ANNO 1598' respectively, giving the Epacts for each of the 19 years commen- cing in 1598 for both styles of calendar. It allows immediate translation between the Julian and Gregorian systems. The other two scales and the details on the volvelle refer to use of the dial by moonlight.

It may be remembered from Part 2 that the method of finding the Epact from first Fig.1 Fig.2 principals is to find the Co]den Number by taking the year and adding I, in this Perpetual Calendars are to be found in Those that are, frequently have fascinab case making 1599. This figure is then divided by 19 giving 84 and leaving a many forms, some of which are described ing historical information inscribed on remainder of 3. This remaining figure in detail below. In most cases the them. inscriptions and tables on them have should then be converted by the table been deciphered, but some mysteries still given to find the Epact for that year, also remain. These will be discussed at the Various Perpetual Calendar devices are 3 in this case. This is exactly what is end. now described in detail and are listed in engraved for the Julian scale. The chronological order. Gregorian figure is found by subtracting 10 days. Note that at this date, the error The earliest calendar described below is just 10 taken from a printed book of 1503. it is Calendar Printed in Missale Pataviense, between the calendars was days, simple and easily used, although some- 1503 whereas it had increased to II when what limited in what it can tell. Similar Britain'scalendar was updated in 1752. calendars were also engraved on metal Perpetual Calendar, incised on a table plates, either as dedicated calendars or as Part 1, Fig.l shows an illustration of this top, Kepler House, Regensburg, c. 1600 part of another instrument or objet d'art. calendar, produced from a wo(~cut, The use of more than one engraved plate, and dated 1490. [t is captioned 'Tafel or disk, joined in a way that one could be zur Auffindung des Sonntagsbuchsta- This table top, about 1.5 metres square, bens', (Table for finding Sunday letters). rotated against the other led to some with its complex calendar is a remarkable The main reference date for this calen- work of art. It carries a great deal of quite complex calendars being produced. dar is the year 1490, inscribed at the information. In particular it shows every top. However, it can be used before and day of the year with its associated saint's Some of the earlier calendars found are after this date by stepping around the or feast day. it shows all of the informa- on sundials, particularly those of the circle. The outer two rings carry the tion already dLscussed, mostly on sub- ivory diptych type from both Nuremberg Sunday or Eh~minical Letter. The year, sidiary 'dials' around the main one. Part and Dieppe. Many of those made in 1490 is placed below the letters d and c 2, Fig. 3. shows iust part of this fantastic Nuremberg, between the date of intro- leading to possible confusion. The date table top. Here the effigy, of the Sun is duction of the New Style in 1582 by the actually refers to c, the calendar actually surrounded by the Dominical Letters for Catholic Church and its intr(giuction by starting at the top of the circle and the year 1600 onwards. the Protestants in 1700, were scaled for rotating clockwise to increment the both the Julian and Gregorian Styles. This years. Therefore, the year of the dis- Silver Altitude Sundial with Perpetual dual notation was particularly important covery of the Americas by Columbus, Calendar, Germany c. 1600 in Germany due to the simultaneous use 1492, is identified as a leap year by of Old and New Styles by the Protestants having two letters assigned, a and g. The front of the dial (Fig. 1) carries a and the Catholics respectively. The lower letter g, which is applicable vertical pin-gnomon altitude sundial. In up to the intercalated Leap Year day, its centre is a lunar dial, also showing the Many Perpetual Calendars were pro- and the upper letter a, for the remainder 4 phases of the M(~)n. These are labelled, duced in Germany, often in silver. These of that year. The year 1500 is shown as NM (Neu Mond), EV (Erstes Viertel), VM usually include information such as a Leap Year day, confirming that this (Voll Mond) & LV (Letztes Viertel).It also major church festivals, saints' days plus calendar is Julian. (The Gregorian has the 7 days for the week signifiedonly times of sunrise and sunset, etc. Calendar was not introduced until by their planetary symbols, that may 1582). The next ring towards the centre conveniently be set against the adjacent Similar calendars were produced in other carries the Lunar Cycle of 19 years 1-31 day scale. To use it as a sundial, the European countries, but more often in giving 9 for 1490. The inner ring is the gnomon supporting arm is set against the brass or copper. In Britain, there are few Indiction Cycle of 15 years giving 8 for current month letter and the time is read early Perpetual Calendars to be found. 1490. from its shadow falling on the vertical

Bulletin of the Scientific InstrumentSociety No. 64 (2000) 7

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hour ~ale on Its, right. (Note that in the except for one apparently containing 19 photograph the gnomon is mcorrtx'tlv and three with (1. lhqow this are 5 lines po, ltlontx~ on the wrong .',ide of the diali. with what is obviously a month long calendar from 1 to 31 days followed by four O's. It,, re~er..,e (Fig. 2), has the quotation The fi~t two lint.,s of numbers refer to the 'thnh,rt .~ol Kelne Zeit mehr .,,'in: Ap~'a. months of the year. In this table, March is 10 V-t,'. [he pierced front plate can be reckoned as M~mth I. This means that the rotated to reveal details for each month in 1 first two .,~luares from the left are July (5) turn [hl~, ..,tarts with 'Die Zeichen' and April (2), both startin G on the same ~howlng the /~Jiac ~ign for Libra, then weekday. The next pair, ~'ptember (7) further round the edg e is a picture of the and L~cember (10) on the previous one, l.lbra .,~'ales'. The rings read ~'quentially etc. The odd figure of 19 is not nineteen "X|onat l~'ptember 30] lage °, "Tag [12] Fig.3 but l(&)9 refernn G to twn months that i.ang', "Nacht [12] Lang °, "~nnen [~] will start on the ~lme day in addition to ,-\utgang', "L'~nnen [o] Untergang" and month 12 in the square at, ore. Therefore, "[)er 1'41 Monat'. Thi~ information was The style of the numerals 1 and 2 are vital at the time of its con.~truction It was relativt, lv early, and tend to sugGt,,st that the months March, November and nece,,-,arv to know the tlmt~ of .,,unn.~,, this dial was made around 16(NI. February all start on the ~me day of ~,un,,et and dav length,~. ~Vork in the the week. The remaining ~uares carry from twld~, could ¢;nlv take place during Ivory Diptych Sundial by Nicolas the days 1 to 31 in weekly columns. The four 0's at the lower right are iust dayhght hour~,, and it may have even Crucefix of Dieppe c. 1670 u~,d to fill 4 unwanted ~uares. On ~,me been danGerou,, to go out during the calenda~ of this type, the maker has hour', of darkness The calendar .system The volvelle (Fig. 3) shown is on the in~,rted here the year of manufacture of .,hown on thi~ dial is probably Julian The underside of this iw~ry diptych dial. The his calendar, as in Fig. 13, or his name, as clue i,, given by the altitude-scale silvered brass disc has a calendar scale in Fi G. 8. AlthouGh this is a French a-.,oclated wflh t'he .~undial, (Fig. 1), around its outside such, that when calendar, and by the time of its manu- where the pontoon of early Marc-h lit.'s rotated, it adiu~,ts the p~v~ition of the facture the newer Gregorian Calendar opp~,qte that of early ~,ptem~,r, i.e., the dial's hnur ~-ale on the rever.,ce face by cqumoxe~, art" around ltl March and 111 was in u~, the months are still numbered means of a cam type m~

14 Bulletin of the ~'mntific Instrument ~ciety No, 64 (21)110) , ,A t: ~':l'E/f ,~

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I .-'<~~',~ ~4~;*~. Si,ver Perpetual Calendar, probably total,,f nineteen being given, which will ' ~ • ~o,,,., English, c. 1680 then repeat for subsequent years. ,,.. .~ ~ ~,

'CAI,ENDARIUM PE'~PFTUUM '. (Notice fascinating information 1-he outer ring the engraving error where the R has been gives the month number, (March still , :~.'.-r~ ~ ,.I inserted later between E and E) It al,~ being I at this date), and the number of , ~ .... carries a quotation from Exodus. A list of days in each month. Inside that is a ring .. o,,:.~'.~,..:_ ~ days of the week may be set against the depicting the equivalent days of the .:.,,.~ ~,,~: .....appropriate date, 1-31. Note that the d Zt~iac. Note thai the 'first point of Aries' ~ '.i '`~ and ~' art, in the Dutch style, its reverse falls t,n 10 March. This is further (Fig. 7), reads 'The [9 Month hath 301 confirmation, that this is a Julian Calen- Da~'t.,s'. 'The Ill'"]'. 'the Night [16] hotirt,,s dar. Inside are noted important events for hmg'. 'the Daj? [8] hoUrt,,s I.~mg'. 'the Sun each month of the )'ear. Some of tht,,se art, riseth at the [8'"] hoiJre and ,~,tteth at the quite cryptic, and ,~}me explanation may Fig.0 [4"'] houre'. In its centre is an hour glass be needtxt. 'IlI.EI,i.CR:N29' ill = Ma~3 and the motto 'Avec le Temps'. 'The El.i = Ft,.stival of Philip & James on 1 [11'"1' refers to the date in November May, CR:N.29 = Carolus Rex !1 Natus 29 - starting in 1657 through to 1723 together when the Sun enters the next Z~iac sign, (the birthday of Charles !, 29 Mav). with the Epact for that year. One (~gittarius). 1his layout is typical of Against IX, November, is "P.TR 5', puzzling featuw of this table is the many Perpetual Calendars of this period Powder lrea,,~m on the 5th, referring to planetary symbols. They have been They have been noted from Britain, the Gunpowder Plot of 1004. Christmas added in the blank squart.,s that signify Germany and the Low Countries. Day is ~ignifk~ ,,~deh." by a +. "XI.Cir.- a Leap Year. In the left block these iE.O.P25KCI.B.~Y. XI = Januan," Cir.iE.6 correspond to the day nott~l, but on the Perpetual Calendar dated 1688. English = Circumcision of Jl.'sus on O Janua~', 1~5 right they bear no relationship to the signed 'E.C.fecit' = R.,stival of St. Paul on 25 Janua~' and actual days. KCI.B.311 = King Charles l Beheadtx| on 1his Perpetual Calendar (Fig. 81 is 30'", a rather gruesome reminder of events just a few years back. Silver Gilt Snuff-Box with Perpetual remarkable fi~r the wealth of information Calendar, German c. 1680 that it carrit.'s. [his side has the ,,,quaw table similar to others dt~-ribtxt above. In the centre of the calendar art' 4 hnes of Around its outside are 4 rings of characters. A I~.,rfo.'t dtx't~tmg is not This (Part I, Fig. 2) is similar to many information. Reading ch~'kwi,,~, from certain, but they art, h, lieved to translate German Perpetual Calendars of the 'EASTER =lO~.lt,l=' are numbers like as follows:- peri~l. These are quite common and !1.15, 1.31, etc. Tht,~e give the date of may be found on boxt.'s, such as this, as Easter, (month and dayL for consecutive 'EstIBI7A.EMBW'. Easter lerm l~t,gins di~-s in their own right (Fig.12.), or on years from 1~I,1 to 1727. (11.15 = April 15, 17 April. Ends Monday lSefore Wh,t,,un. other objects such as on the covers of an 1.31 = March 31, etc.). Inside this ring iron' leafed writing tablet. It carries 'KEY=DAY' is the day of the start of each similar day length information to that in year, with [,eap "~bars marktxt with a star. "TrinBI2AW.CIqD'. Irinitv (Ibrm) Ik'- Fig. 1., but in addition it has 'FESTA - [he Leap ~bar of 1088 starttxt on lhurs- gins 12 days After Whltsun. Continue~ ANNI', or various feast days for each day. Counting round, this Calendar al.,~ 19 Days. month. The 'Soils in Signa' shows the shows the year 1700 as a Leap Year confirming the Julian Style. lh, low is a z(~iac figure, plus 2 numbers. The first is "Mic.B23VIIl. E281X'. Michaelmas (term) Moon symbol hdlowed by 'SOUTtt', and the date of enid' into that sign in Julian Lk'gins 23 (~.-tober Ends 28 No~ ember notation, and the second is for Gregorian. is the time of the mi,m's .,~mthing, (when This calendar can therefore be used for it crosses the meridian), with its change either system. It places its date before the of 48 minutes each day. Ihe last ring "HiI.BZIIXI. EI2XII'. llilan' (k, rm) ~.gms I'rotestant calendar reform of 1700. carries the number for the 'EPACT', a 23 Januan'. Ends 12 February.

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Fig.4 Fig.5 hour .~'ale on zts right. (Note that in the except for ¢~nt, apparently containing 19 photograph the gnomon is mcorrtx'tlv and three with O. l~,low this art- 5 lines po~,~ti,,ned on the wrong .,,ide of the diali. with what is obviously a month Ionlg calendar from i to 31 ~lavs followed by fol.lr ()'s. Its, rever~, (Fig. 2), has the quotation "[hnfort ~1 Keine Zeit mehr .,,t,m: Ap,~.'a. The fir.~t two lint.'s of numbt, rs refer to the 10.V re. 1-he petted fr~,nt plate can bt, months of the year. in this table, March is I reckoned as Month l. This means that the rotated to reveal details tor each month in turn I-h~s .,,tarts with "Die Zeichen' first two .,,quart.,sfrom the k'ft art, July (5) .,,howmg the z~,.|iac sign tor i.i[~ra, then and April (2), both startin~4 on the ~me further n,und the edge is a picture of the wet, kdav. The next pair, ~t,ptember (7) IJbra '.~-al¢,~,'. ]he rings read .,~'quentzally and Dt'cemtx, r (10) on the prt,vious orK,, "\lonat [.~'ptember .'~11 1-age°, "lag [121 Fig.3 etc. The odd fil,lure of 19 is not nineteen Ling', "Nacht 1121 Lan~ °, "~nnen [t~] but l(&)9 referring to two months that ;~,utgan~ °, "~nnen [~] Lntergang ° and will start cm the same dav in addition to "l)~'r [q] Monar'. Ihis information was The style of the numerals ! and 2 art, month 12 in the .,~luare above. Therefore, vital at the time of ~ts con~,tructlon. It was relativt,Iv earh', and tend to .suggest that the months March, November and ntx'e-,~arv to know the tlmt~ of .,,unri.,~,, this dial" was made around i~l(I. February all start on the ~me day of ~,un~,t and day length,;. Work in the the week. The remaininK .,,quart.,s carry tield,, could ¢;nlv take place during Ivory Diptych Sundial by Nicolas the days from i to 31 in w~'t,kly columns. da~hght h~urs, and it may have even Crucefix of Dieppe c. 1670 The fi~ur O's at the lower right art' just [~'t,n danger~u.~ to go out during the u.~d to fill 4 unwanted .,,quart's. On .,~me calendars of this type, the maker has h~ur-, ot darkne~,,,. I he calendar .,,v.,,tem [he ~ohelle (Fi R. 3) sh,~wn is on the in.,~,rted here the year of manufacture of ~,hown on this dial ls probably Julian. The under.~ide of this ivo~' diptych dial. The his calendar, as in Fig. 13, or his name, a.~ clue l~, g=x'en b~" the altitude-.,,cale sikered brass di.,,c has a calendar ~ale in Fig. 8. Alth,~u~h this is a French ,z,,,,~.zated with the .,,undial, (Fig. 1), around its out.,,ide such, that when calendar, and by the time of its manu- t~here the po~qtion t)f earh: March ]it's rotated, it adiusts the p~ition of the facture the newcn" Gregorian Calendar ~pp~,=tt' that of earl.v %'ptembt, r, i.e., the dial's hour .,~'ale on the rever.~, face by was in use, the m~mths are still numbc,red t'qumoxe~ are around lO March and I0 means of a cam type mechanism Of from March. .",t'ptember. Note that the months are particular interest in this calendar is the numbered fr~m Januan,', and n(~t March .,,quart, table in its centrt,. l~e first two a,, ,~n mare. Engli~,h calendars. lines art, filled with numtx, rs from 1 to 12 Astrolabe Quadrant, Henry Sutton, 1658 itenrv Sutton was an engraver of repute. r In addition to his usual output, he is known to have engraved pnnting plates, and in this ca.,~', plates to enable him to make 'cheaper' instruments. The paper plates of this quadrant are past¢~l onto an oak ba~. In addition to the more usual quadrant ~ales are trigonometrical ~ak.,s ~; ~\,'~ , j,)j plus two tables of calendar information. One table (Fig. 4), shows the months of the year, and a calendar of 31 days. This is a .~imilar format to the table on the Crucifix dial (Fig;. 3), but it runs from March to the folh~wing February. The other scale on the Sutton quadrant (Fig. Fig.7 5) indicates the first day of each year

Bulk,tin of tl~, .~ienhfic In.~tmrm,nt ~eiety No (,4 (2(XX)) , ~", ~~:~.~.,~_~ f.<~

f:z. -,,

Fig.8 Fig.10

Silver Perpetual Calendar, probably total of nineteen being given, which will English, c. 1680 then rewat h~r suh~'quent years.

The front side (Fig. 0), is entitled Its rever.,~, side (Fig. 9) carrit.,s further ,'.'. o ,: .', ÷."- ,,'~ ,, 'CAI.ENDARIUM I'E"i'ETUUM'. (Notice laminating information. ]he outer ring the engraving error where tbe R has been givt,'s the month number, (March still in.,~,rted later between E and E) It al.~ I~,ing I at this date), and the num~,r of carrit~ a quotation from Exodus. A list of days in each month Inside thai is a ring days of the week may be ~,t against the depicting the equivak,nt days of the appropriate date, 1-51. Note that the ii ~diac. Note that the 'fi~t l~nnt of Arit~' and y are in the Dutch style. Its rever.,~, falls on l0 March. This is further (Fig. 7), reads 'The 19 Month hath .~)! confirmation, that this is a Julian Calen- D,Wt.'s'. 'Tbe I1 I'"1'. 'the Night [1~,] hourt.,s dar. Inside are noted iml~rtant events for Long'. 'the Da~;' 18l hoUris Long'. 'the Sun each month of the year. ~me Of tht.':~t.,are ri~,th at the 18"I houre and setteth at the quite cryptic, and .,~me explanation may Fig.9 [4 'hI hoiire'. In its centre is an hour glass be needed. 'III.EI.i.CR:N2tY Iil = Ma,~', and the motto 'Avec le Temps'. 'The P.l.i = Ft~tival of Philip & Jamt.~ on I [i1'"]' refers to the date in November May, CR:N.2q = Candus Rex I1 Natus 2'-I - starting in 1657 through to 1723 together when the Sun enters the next Z~iac sign, (the birthday of Charles I, 2~ Mavl. with the Epact for that year. One (Saglttarius). This lavout is typical of Again,~t IX, November, is 'I;TR 5', puzzling feature of this table is the many Peri~,tual Calendars of this peru,1. Powder [rea.~n on the 5th, retemng to planetary symbols. They have been They have been noted from Britain, the (;unl~wder l'lol of I~14. Christmas added in the blank squar~ that signify C,ermanv and the l~w Countrit.'s. Day is .~ignified .,~delv bv a +. 'XI.Cir.- a Leap Year. In the left block tht.~• iE.O.P25KCIB.~Y. Xl = J~muar)', Cir.iE.0 correspond to the day noted, but on the Perpetual Calendar dated 1688. English = Circumcision of Jesus on 6 Januar)', 1"2,5 right they bear no relationship to the signed 'E.C.fecit' = h~tival of St. Paul on 25 Janua~' and actual days. KCI.B.~I = King Chark.~ I l~,headed on [his l'erpetual Calendar (Fig. 8) ts 30'", a rather grue~,ome reminder of events jIIM a few vears hack. Silver Gill Snuff-Box with Perpetual remarkable for the wealth of infornmtion Calendar, German c. 1680 that it carrit.~. [his side has the .,~luare table similar to others dt.'~'rlbed above. In the centre of the calendar are 4 line~ ot Around its outside are 4 rings of characters. A i~'rfect decod,ng i.,, not This (Part 1, Fig. 2) is similar to many information Reading ch~'kwi.~, from certam, but they art, believed to tran~,late German Perpetual Calendars of tht' 'EASTER =!~,88=' are numbers like as hdlows:- l~'riod. Tht.'~, are quite common and 11.15, 1.31, etc. Tht~se give the date of may be found on boxt.'s, such as this, as Easter, (month and day), for con~'cutive dims in their own right (Fig.12.), or on years from 1088 to 172~7. (ll.15 = April 15, 'EstlBI7A.EMBW'. Ea~,ter h,rm lh,gms other objects such as on the covers of an I.Sl = March 31, etc.), instde this ring 17 April. Ends ,Monday l~'tore ~Xh=t.~un ivot3' leafed writing tabh't. It carries" 'KEY--DAY' is the day of the start of each similar day length inh~rmation to that in year, with Leap Years marked with a star. 'lrin.Bl2AW.ClqlY. lrmltv (lbrm) I~,- Fig. i., but in addition it has 'FESTA - :lhe Deap Year of loS,q started on l'hurs- gins 12 days Alter White,tin. Contlnue~ ANNI', or various feast days h~r each day. Counting round, this Calendar al.~ I~ l)avs. month The 'Solis in Signa' shows the shows the year 170(I as a l~'ap ~i,ar zi~iac figure, plus 2 numbers. The first is confirming the Julian Style. Below is a 'Mic.B25VIII E2~IX'..Michaelmas (h'rm) the date of entt3' into that sign in Julian M~,m symbol followt~l b~' '~)UTII', and i~.gins 25 tX'h~.r. Ends 2~ November. notation, and the .,~,ctmd is for Gregorian. is the time of the melon's .~mthing, (when This calendar can therefl~re be u.~'d for it cr,~.~.'s the meridian), with its change either system. It plact,,s its date I~,fore the of 48 minutt.'s each day. The last ring 'HiI.B25Xl. E12XII'. Hilarv (Term) I~,gm.~ I'n~tt.,stant calendar reform of 17(K). carrit,~ the number for the 'EPACT', a 23 lanuaQ'. Ends 12 February.

Bulletin of the .'4cwntific in,~trument ."~K'ietv No ~i (2tHe)) 9 Perpetuall Years ..,<:~.,..:::7~:-'-.-.:.:.., •":.":,,.,:" ,~,,~ f .-.;d" • +-P : :", /'...".,.~. ~ x~-~'P',':/- ~., "~;.;, f E D C B A G ..," ,~\,~. ~.,,~ ,- ~-. ,,., 1700 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 g 10 ii :1.~. "-: '~-,"~W~: "~,."~ Z '~- '- 12 13 14 15 16 h ':-;.~...=.~",~- ." -., 7". -_.+-..',:'+.,, 17 18 1o 20 21 22 24 25 26 27 28 20 31 32 33 M 3~ 37 38 30 44) 41 42 43 44 4g 46 47 48 40 5O 51 52 53 M 55 5~ 57 6O 61 Fig.12 Almanacke Sundays

I 2 3 4 5 6 7 reign of William and Mary. It is dated 8 o 10 11 12 13 14 '1715' with 'Epact 6'. The calendar table 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 is headed with Dominical Letters and the 22 ~ 24 25 26 27 28 months. 20 .30 31 32 33 M 35 [an. A B C D E F G Odo. Silver Disc Calendar, English, probably 171S May. B C D E F G A & Aug. C D E F G A B & FeNo. D E F G A B C Mar. Although pt~sibly using a coin as a base (Part 1, Fig.4, left), both sides have been |une, E F G A B C D & used. it is almost certainly by the same ~l,t. F G A B C D E Dec. engraver as the above. It has an identical Apr. G A B C D E F luly. table, and Epact 6. On its reverse is a monogram surrounded by similar dec- oration to the above calendar. Fig.ll Perpetual Calendar, silver, from Get- many, c. 1720 Note that the terms of Easter and Tnnity Analemmatic Sundial, c. 1700 both depend on the date of Easter. Michaelmas and Hilary are fixed to the This dial (Part 1, Fig. 3) is unsigned but is Much of the engraving on this calendar civil calendar.' These dates all refer to similar to th(~e known to have been (Fig. 12) is self explanatory, but the ram~ 'Law Terms" and suggest that the made by Thomas Tuttel around 1690. On cryptic parts are mentioned below. calendar di~ was specifically made for its underside are several tables detailed someone in the legal profession, such as a in Fig. 11. On the left are i~minical judge. Letters, F-G, for the years 1700 to 1761. The third ring shows the day length, Note the gaps for Leap Years. on the 'Tags - liing'. The figure in Arabic Wooden Quadrant, dated 1694 right is a table of Sundays for the months numerals refers to the date in that month of the war with their i~minical Letters. when the day length is as shown in the The quadrant's style (Fig. 10) and This Calendar Square is similar to others Roman numerals. Therefore 2 May is 15 decoration are similar to th(~e known already described, but in slightly differ- hours long and 24 May is 16 hours long. from John Browne. it was made for ent format, one puzzling feature of this 'Sonnen - iauf' is the date of the sun's latitude 52" 15'. It carries a rectangular dial is that the Equinox date indicated tm entry into the next sign of the Zodiac on table, being a Perpetual Calendar. In the its reverse side is for 21 March. This 22 May, shown by its symbol (Gemini). first row, the Months, M0, are numbered, would date it after 1752! However, it is 'Aufgang' is the time of sunri~. Where similar to th(~e in Fig. 4. Below this are 5 clearly English, and was made about half two times are shown, this refers to the rows .~howing the Days of the Month, a century before Britain changed to this dates already given in the 'Tag-lang' column. Dai, 1 to 31 with 4 remaining squares new calendar. We can only surmise that it each annotated 0. The next row, DI., is the was made for an Englishman living ~m.nical Letter, G-A. Below that, LY, abnmd, but then surely he would need There are ,several variants to be found on dates for Leap Years, (16)88, (1)700, to have both calendars anm)tated? this format. The main differences are the (16)84, (16)96, (16)80, (16)92 & (170)4, lists of festivals, either in Latin or Ger- and finally, Et~a, Epacts. These refer to the Silver Coin with Perpetual Calendar on man. This is a Gregorian Calendar list of Leap Years immediately above. its Reverse, English 1715 because the date of entry into the Zodiac Note the errors in the table. The first line Signs is around 21" of each month. Note of Months shows 8 & 22 ir~stead of 8 & 11 This Calendar (Part I, Fig. 4, right) shows that by 1720, the whole of Germany had and 2 & 3 instead of 2 & 5. the re-u~ of an earlier coin from the fully accepted the New Style Calendar.

I0 Bulletin (~ the Scientific Instrument ~Kiety No, 64 (2(K}O) ' * ~lr"-- -~- ,~ ," 1 i -r; /p ~'''*

" '-- ..... / - /' ~" ,, "-i-~'~"7~-- ~, ~ .-r

Fig.13

Dutch Tobacco Box, Brass and Copper. dates. Around this is in~ribed 'The Probably from Pieter Holm of Amster- Universal Time Table S.Kingd(m inv'. dam, 1757 Fig.14

On its lid (Fig.13) is a Perpetual Calendar Perpetual Calendar on Lacquer Box, with 7 columns headed with the month, English 179"2 The underside, not illustrated, has a ring month number and number of days in showing the entry date into each Zodiac sign. For every 8 days of the month the that month. Below that are the 31 days of This box (Fig. 15) carries tables and the month. The 4 remaining (often time is given for sunrise and sunset in the w)lvelles on both its lid and base. Inside form H8 - M9 - H4 (for 1 January). l'his vacant) squares are filled with the date there is a small sundial. On top the outer of its manufacture, 1757. This box is can be read both ways to mean that the ring contains all twelve months, with the Sun nses at 8hrs 9rains and sets at 4hrs typical of many boxes produced from number of days in each. Below that are the worLshop of Pieter Holm between (minus) 9rains. Inside that is the sentence events, mostly saints' days for each describing how to find Easter:- 'Easter 1729 and 1768.: Similar boxes were made month. Particularly interesting dates are in Holm's workshop up to 1817. On the Sunday is always the first Sunday after January 18 'QC.BDay K' (Queen Car- the first full mCam tollowmg the twenty underside of the box is a nautical Itg oline's? Birthday ? K?'), May 29 'KCil table for assessing the speed of a ship. first of March except such full Moon Restoration' (Restorati(~n as monarch of happens ¢m a Sunday, m which Case it is King Charles il), June 4 'KGIll Born' the Sunday following'. A small volvelle Silver Equinoctial Sundial by J. Simons, (King George 1I! Born), July 7 'Thos. a at the centre carries the 31 days of the London c. 1772 Becket' (Thomas a Becket murdered in nm)nth to be set against the day of the Canterbury Cathedral 29 December 1170, week, and 'The Mtam's Age, Phases and This Calendar (Fig. 14) is engraved on the but reburried inside the Cathedral fifty Southin'. lid of a small compags sundial, it is years later on July 7 1220), August 12 divided into 8 segments, the first reading "P.Wales Born' (Prince of Wales Born - 'March begins on in the Year 171)0 &'. later to become George IV), Octt~" 2.3 Copper Calendar Disc for 1818 Then, for each subsequent segment, 'Sun- 'K.G.I1 Acces.' (Accessitm to the throne of day', 'Monday', etc., showing the years King George 11), Ochd~,r 26 'K.G.III.- This (Part 1, Fig. 5) is a corn type where March begins on that day. it runs Proc.' (Proclamation of King George i11), Calendar intended for use in the year from 1772 to 1790. It is interesting that November 5 "Powder Plot' (Gunl~wder 1818. It carries the usual Calendar the dt.,signer has used March as reference, Plot of 160-1), November 9 'Ld. Mayr. Square, in this case for 1818. It al.,~ because by this time the Gregorian Day' (Lord Mayor's Da~'). There are carries dates for the maior church Calendar was in use in Britain, but by I~minical Letters given for each year festivals. On its reverse there is a table doing so, he has avoided the complica- from 1792 to 1832 and a w~lveile to of New M~a~ns and Full M~ams wath tion of Leap Years. in its centre ks the I:x~sition these letters against days of the notes of Lunar Eclipses, Law l'erms and usual Calendar Square with months and week, the I~minical Letter for the year° D.

Fig.15 Fig.16 Fig.17

Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument S(~,ty No. 64 (2tXX)) 11 Perpetual Calendar on Wooden Box, The incorrect figures on the quadrant scribed in this series, it should be French c. 1831 (Fig. I0) are probably just simple mi~ possible to work out how they are to be takes. The maker possibly picked up the used. Particularcare should be taken as Its lid (Fig.16),carries a complete annual wrong punch and hit it before realising there are many small differences in calendar with a central voh'elle.With this his mistake. In the dim lighting of his calendar systems, either by country, by the days of the week may be positi(n~d worL,~hop, tw beside an unglazed win- religion or by date. Calendar systems against their appropriate dates, in parti- dow, the light may have been t(x)l~xw to used in non-European cultures, (even the cular it details all of the n~)veable feasts immediately realisethe mistake. Correct- decimal calendar system used briefly in centred on Easter, and includes an ing a punch marked error on wood is France following the revolution), form a example for 1831. The underside exceedingly difficultdue to the crushing laminating area for further research and (Fig.17), carries several tables and in- of the wo~xl fibre. [t is even possible that go beyond the scope of this article. structions for finding Easter which may he never even noticed his mistakes. The then be used for setting the volvelleon its puzzle of the planetary day symbols on Notem lid. In its centre is a listof years with the the Sutton quadrant (Fig. 5) is more actual dates for Easter ~,m 1830 to 1877. difficult to figure out. A man of his 1. The Law Terms used k~ay retain their old Entries such as '18,%b 23m' refer to 18~ ability and reputation is not likely to names but since 1873 the dates have been being Bissextile,(leap year), with Easter havemade such a mistake. There is no revL,x~d and corresp~n~d only appn)ximately falling on 23 March. Bolow this table is a rea~m to fillthese 'unwanted' squares in with the old dates. list of 'The Equation of "time' for each the firstplace, (other makers leave them 2. R(4~'t van Cent. Private communicati,~n. fifth day in eve~" month blank or just add * or 0. Maybe he 3. This does not altogether make ~(mse,but the thought that he would just 'decorate' K may refer to Queen Caroline as the Queen The Calendar Square them, and he chose planetary symbols. Mother of the present King, George Ill. Her These correspond in the left-hand block birth date has not been verified by the author. to the days of the week shown, but on the This square m its various h~rms is found 4. The date shown (m this calendar does not on several of the calendars described right side, for some reason, he did not agree with the date normally given for his above. The presentation of the informa- follow the same pattern. saint's day t~ 29 December. This suggests that tion given on them varies in three the date given may be that attributed to his fundamental ways. Conclusions birth. 5. The Lord Mayor's Show was held on 29 !. The months may be wntten with their The Perpetual Calendar has been shown Octol~er heh)re the Calendar Reform. It is one names, or with a month number In cases to be a fa.~inating device, and many of of the events that had to slip back by II days. where just a number is used, it is its cryptic inscriptions have been deci- Acknowledgemenls important to decide if the calendar phered. Although a device invented conforms to the modern system of many years ago to keep track of days of The author would like to thank the many starting the year January earlier in or the the year, religious festivals and day friends and correspondents who have one with the year starting in March. Even lengths, many of its features may still helped either directly or indirectly in the in ca.ses where the month of March is be used to this day. The author has seen production of this article. The following numbered l, many calendars reckon the several Perpetual "Calendars of ml~ern list shows just some of them. He year as ~tarting from the preceding construction. One was made of plastic, apok)gises to any who may have inad- Januaq'. covering the year 2{X)0 to 2099, but vertently been omitted. David Cofeen, L. similar ones are often found, made of Cranach, Robert van Gent, K. E Kerre- 2. The numbers (or m(mth names) can brass and quite ornate, usually from bijn, Charles Mollan, Anthony Turner, line up with any day of the week. This is India. One seen recently by the author Gerard UE Turner, Michael Sekulla, and because the calendar has been designed in an 'antique shop"had all of its Jacques van Damme. He would also like for one particular ,,'ear. However, the markings in Indian ~ript. This suggests to thank the anonymous owners of the .,,equence repeats it~lf evew 7 years, and that it had been made for the Indian Perpetual Calendars illustrated for their allowing for this will make it 'p.,rpetual'. market and presumably was still in- kind permission to use the photographs tended to be used. It was certainly not shown. Errors and Unexplained Markings particularly suitable as a 'tourist exert'. Author's address: In making this study of Perpetual The student will come across other PO. Box 970 Cah.ndar devices severa'l apparent em)rs perpetual calendars, and by understand- Haslm~field CB3 7FL have ~,n noticed. ing the various calendar systems de- Mike@eastlands99:fre.,~,,r~e.co.uk

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12 Bulletin of the Sc~ntific [nstmrnent S~'iety No. 64 (21)00) Early Printed Ephemera of London Instrument Makers: Trade Catalogues Part 1: Joseph Moxon, 1673 D. J. Bryden

Introduction available, and to stimulate collectors, Diameter, wherein all old emirs are recti- curators and librarians to report similar fied, the Bodies exactly made; approv'd by Almost a decade ago the National but hitherto unrecorded material. the ingenk)us. Made and sold by I~l Museums of Scotland published a hand Moxtm, and Iohn Sucar, near St Mu'tuael~ list of the trade catak)gues of scientific Jo~ph Moxon Church m Cornhill, at the signe of the Atlas instrument makers? From Abraham (of on Parnassus Hilly Liverpool, England) to Zentmeyer (of Born in Wakefield in 1627 and buried in Philadelphia, USA) are 1570 entries, each London in 1691, Joseph Moxon is well Amsterdam was the home of the famous annotated with the locations where known to historians of printing for his Biaeu globe workshop, which suggests copies can be found. The compilers noted detailed record of printing and type- that Moxon learned globe making them. that the rarity of these items is com- founding first issued in a series of His first independent publication, was a I~)unded by the relative indifference monthly parts ~m 1683.~ The work of translati(m (16~) from the Latin of the given to such ephemera by libranes and the smith, carpenter, loiner and turner first part of Willem Blaeu's institutio museums; thus for three-quarters of their had been covered in an earlier series, Astronoraica, the first of three quite entries, only one location is known, in which began in January 1678. This first different works that Moxon was to short, though printed and widely dis- series of histories of trades were prob- publish, which to confuse the unwary seminated in their day, the vast majority ably the spur to Moxon's election to the all have a title that opens 'A Tutor to of such material can effectively be Royal Society later that year - he was the Astronomy and Geo~craphy'. On the title considered as being as unique as a first tradesman to receive that distinc- page of that first book, Moxon, now in manuscript. Despite the date range of ti(m.' Alas, Moxon's intention to pro- business on his own, announced that at their title '1600-1914', the earliest item duce similar accounts of the instrument- his shop 'at the signe of Atlas in listed by Robert Anderson, John Bumett making trade was not followed Cornhill' he sold without giving any and Brian Gee in this pioneering en- through. ~ His son James, was r~ponsi- specific detail 'Globes of all sizes'; deavour is a one page catalogue of the hie for the publication of a new section perhaps Moxon also imported Dutch Oxford mathematical instrument maker added to early eighteenth century issues globes to supplement those of his own John Pru~ean, which lists just 20 items of the 1693/4 edition of Mechanick manufacture. In the many subsequent and was printed on the final page of the Exercises - but it covers bricklaying, not works that he published, Moxon usually 1701 [4th] edition of Richard Holland's instrument-making! In addition to being included lists of all his books and the Gh~be Notes3 lllustraticaxs of the relatively a printer, publisher and writer on globes and instruments that he sold. few seventeenth-century catalogues of practical mathematics, J(~eph Moxon Moxon's restricted stock of mathemati- London instrument makers that are was maker of terrestrial and celestial cal instruments was made-up of devices known to have survived were shown in globes and armillary spheres. He com- made from paper." As an instrument- my 1998 SIS Annual Invitation Lecture, plemented some of the mathematical maker, he was a specialist globe and and most had been cited in the source b~a)ks that he published, by producing sphere maker, who complemented his material for an earlier article in the paper instruments. It is as a maker of publishing activities by supplying pnnts Bulletin that discussed London-made globes and spheres and of paper of paper instruments to supplement the paper instruments.' Such items are not mathematical instruments that he is the texts that he published, i dealt with the readily accessible. As promised in the first subject of this short series. latter aspect of Moxon's business en published verskm of the Annual Invita- pas~nt in the Bulletin article on paper tion Lecture, this series of short articles Joseph Moxon had spent much of his instruments, so that ! will not repeat will re-print them, together with a brief boyhood in the Netherlands. His father, that material heR. commentary. an extreme puritan had emigrated to Delft before settlingin R(~erdam in 1637 In their introduction, Anderson, Bumett where for six years he printed English The Moxon list re-printed below is an and Gee trace the development of the Bibles. The family moved to London ephemeral broad sheet, dated 1673, in the trade catalogue to the lists of books following the triumph of the Parliamen- British Library. It Ls part of the extensive pngluced by individual publishers and tary party, and father and son were collection of ephemera relating to English stationers which bad become comm(m- admitted to the Weavers Company in pnnting put together by the b(x~L.~eller place by the end of the first century of 1646. They worked t(rgether for some John Bagford (1650-1716).'" The call mark printing. In this context it is not surpris- years printing puritan tracts, but in the is Ba~fi,rd Harl.5947.66. Access is now ing that the earliest Lond(m catalogues of summer of 1652 J(~eph visited Amster- through micro-film copies. There is a instruments appear within lists issued by dam. Advertisements in two London quite distinctive printing bearing the men who were not primarily instrument- almanacs provide evidence of a signifi- same date, m the same volume (BaX,fi,rd makers, but wh¢~e trading activities cant career shift that occurred on his Harl. 5947.70). It is almost identical in included the wholesale and retail sale of return" content, but has one less item - it b(n)ks and maps. Indeed, as will become excludes one map, the English Empire in apparent, of the three businesses to be New and excellent Gh~es, Celestial and America. In Bagford's copy, the Ludgate considered, J,~eph Moxon, John Seller Te~triall of a middle size, between 14. and Hill address have been deleted in ink and 15. Inches diameter, ms,reexact then any yet and Philip Lea, only (me of them - Seller - replaced in manu~ript by 'Warwick can be considered to have managed an published, as al,,a~ the u~ of the Gk~es, especially concerning Dialling; sold bv Lane', in both the title and impnnt line, instrument-making workshop as such. It~"ph Maxon and Iohn S,~ar, at their Shop suggesting that copies of the list were Nevertheless, for the historian of instru- m Cornhill by St Michaels Church, at the being distributed for over two decades ments, the ephemeral listings produced signe of Atlas up(m Mount Parnassus.: and were still being ks,sued in the 1690s by all three are a primary resource, and by James Moxon, who k~k over his through re-printing them it is hoped both am new Gk~es I~th Celestial and father's stock and continued the business to make the source material more readily Terestraill, between 14 and 15 inches for some years at the new address."

Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society. No 64 (2000) 13

4 A CATALOGUE OF GLOBES C0elestial and Terrestrial, SPHERES, MAPPS, SEA PLATTS, Mathematical Instruments, and Books, made and sold by Joseph Moxon on Ludgate Hill at the Sign of Atlas.

lobes, 26 Inches Diameter. The price 20 I. the pair. An exact survey of the Micmcosmus, or httle World. Being an G Globes, near 15 Inches Diameter. The price 4 I. Anatomy of the I~ies of Man and Woman; whereto the Globes 8 Inches Diameter. The price 2 I. Skin, Veins, Nerves, Mu~les, Bones, Sinews and Ligaments Globes 6 Inches Diameter. The pnce 1 I. 10 sk. are accurately delmiated. Engraven on large C~pl~'" Mates, Concave Hemisphef~ of the Starry. Orb: which serves fin" a Printed, and curiously Pasted together, so as., first sight you Case to a Terrest,al Gh~be of 3 Inches diameter, made porta- may behold all the parts of Man and Wonmn; and by turning ble for the Pocket. Price 15 sh. up the several Dissections of the Paper take a view of all their In- Spheres, according to G~ermcus H.~rpothesL~,Ix~th General wards: with Alphabetical references to the Names of every and Particular, 20 Inches Diameter. Price of both 10 I. Member, and part of the Body. Set forth in Latine by Remelieus, Spheres, according to the Ptdemaick Systeme, near 15 In- and Michal Spaher of Tyro/. And Englished by ]ohn lreton Diameter. Price 3 I. Chyrurgenn: And lastly perused and corrected, by several Spheres according to the Ptolomaick Systeme, 8 Inches Dia- rare Anatt~nists. Price 13 sh. meter, Price 1 I. 10 sh. The Catholique Planisphere, which Mr. Blal~eat~ calls the The Mathematical ]euvl about 17 Inches Diameter, Mathematk-al ]eu¢l; bresfly and plainly described m five made on Pasteboard. Price 2 I. Ika,ks. The first shewing the making of the Instrument. The The Spiral lane 13 Inches Diameter. Price l0 sh. rest shewing the manifold uses of it. I. For representing seve- Gunters Quadrant 13 Inches Radius. Printed ,~n Paper, and ral Pn~,,ctions of the Sphere. 2. Fin" resolving all Sphecical pasted i~n a I~ard; with a Nocturnal on the backside. Price 5 ~. Triangles. 3. For resoh'ing all Pmblemes of the Sphere, A- A large MaR' of the World, 10 Foot long, and 7 Foot deep, smmomical, Astrological, and Geographical. 4. For making pasted on Cioath and Coloured. Price 2 I. all sorts of Dyals, both without Doors and within, upon any A MaR" t~all the World, 4 Ft~t long, and 3 Foot deep; Walls, Ceilings or Fl(~rs, he they never so irregular, whenP pasted on Cloath and Coloured. Price 10 sh. soever the direct or reflected Beams of the Sun may crone. A Mapp c,f the En.¢,h~ Empire in America, describing all the All which are to be done by this Instrument with wondrous Places inhabited by the English Nation; aswel on the ease and delight. Whereunto is added a brief Di~ription of Islands as cm the C¢~ntinent. Price 15 sh. the Chess staff.and a Catalogue of Eclipses observed by the 2. C,rlest~alHemispheres of all the Stars and Constellatu,ns in Autl~r Iohn Palmer. Price 4 :,;h. Heaven: Pn~-ted uptm the Poles of the F.quator. 17 in Vicnola, or the Compleat Architect: Shewing in a plain ea- cbes Diameter, curiously engraved on Copper Plates. Price 3 sh sin way, the Rules of the five Orders in Architecture, l,iz. Tu~an, A Sheet Mapp of the Set~,n Umted Pnn,mces of Netherland, Dorick, ionick, CorintMan, and G~mposate: whereby any that with a B(x~k ot the Description of the Countrev. Price 1 sh can but read and understand English, may readily learn the Mercat,~ Sea Plait of al/the u~rld. Price 2 ~.6 d. in sheets. Proportions that all Members m a Building have one unto ano- A Sea Plait of all the Coasts of the West Indies: accord- the~. Set forth by Mr. lames Barrtr,..:ie of Vi~,nola, and mg to Mercators" Prt~ection. Price 4 .~. translated into English by ]l~ph Moxon Hydr &c. Price 3 sh. 6 d. Sea Platts of all the Sea Coasts in the Straits, Spare, France, Chnstoh~la, or a brief but true account of the certain year, En¢,land, Ireland. Flanders, Zeland, Holland, Denmark, all the n~meth, day and minute, of the Birth of JESUS CHRIST. East Sea. and Greenland. Price 5 sh. By h/an Butler B.D. and Chaplain to his Grace ]ames Duke O. Scriptural Maps, 1. Of all the Earth: And how after ofOrmond, &c. And Rector of lachburrm~, in the Dioc'ess of the Fhw~l it was derided among the Sons of N~/a. 2. Of Peterburgh. Pnce 3 sh. 6 d. Paradwe, or the Ca~rden ~ Eden; with the Countries cir- A Tutor to Astroh,Ry, or Astrolo,cy nmde easie; being a plain cumlacent inhabited by the Patnarchs. 3. The 40 years Tra- Intn~uction to the whole Art of AstroltnOt". Whereby the mean- vel t~f the Chtldnen of [sravl thnmgh the Wildern~s. 4. Ca- est apprehension may learn to erect a Figure, and by the same mera, or the H01v land: And ~w it was derided among the give a determinate Judgement upon any Questi(m or Nativity Tweh'e tribes of Israel: And travelled thn~ugh by our Sa- what.~ever. Also new Tables of Houses, calculated h~r the viour and his Apostles. 5. The Travels of Saint Paul and o- Latitude of 51 deg. 32 rain. Also Tables of Right and Ob- ther of the Apostle.~, in their propogatmg the G~z,pel. 6. lique A.~ensions to 6 deg. of Latitude. Whereunto is added Jeru.~dem, as it stt~ m our Saviours time; with a B~k of an Ephemeris for 3 years; with all other necessary Tables that Explanatums to these Maps, entituled Sacred Ge~,raphy. Price belong to the Art of Astrok~gy. AI,~ l'x~w to en~t a Figure 6 sh um'ful to be ~und up with Bibles. the Rational way by the Tables of Triangles, n~re methodical Ig)OKS than hath yet been published. Digested into a small Pocket A Tutor to Astronomy and Ca'ographt/, or the use of both the Volume, for the conveniency of th,~se that erect Figures abroad. GLOBES Grl~t~al and Terrestrial. By ]o.~'ph Moxon By W.Eland. Price 2 sh. Hydrographer to the Kings most excellent Malesty. price 5 sh. The use of a Mathematical lAstrument called a Quadrant, The Vse ef the Copermcan Spheres, teaching to salve the Phle- shewing very plainly and easily to know the exact height and m~mena by them, as easily as by the Ptolemaick Spheres. By distanced of any Steeple, Tree, in" House, &c. also to know the ]t~/a Moxen Hydr. &c. Pnce 4 sh. hour of the day by it; The height of the Sun, Moon, or Stars; Wr~¢ht~ conectum o[ Emirs m the Art of Navigation. and to know the time of Sun Rising in" Setting; And the Pnce 8 sh. length of every day in the year, the place of the Sun in the New and rare Inventions of Water u~rks: Teaching how Ecliptick, the Azimuth, Right A~ensUm and Declinatilm of the to raise ~¥ater higher than the Spring. By which Inventiim Sun with many other ~sary & delightful Conclusions perform- the Perpetual Motion i_s pn~.~ed, many hard lal~urs per- ed very readily: Also the use of a Nirturnal, whereby you may formed: and varietiesiff Motiou and Sounds prtiduced. By learn to know the Stars m Heaven, and the hour of the Night l:-a,ac de Caus Engenier to King C/mrles the first.Price 8 "~. by them. With many othe delightful Operati(ms. Prachcal PersWch~v, or Perspectnv made easie. Teaching, At the place al:mvesaid, you may also have all manner of by the Ophcks how to delineate all I~giies, Buildings, or Land- Mapps, Sea-Platts, Drafts, Mathematcial Bo~s, instrunu'nts, &c skips, &c. By the Catn~ptuks how to delienate confused Ap- At the lowest Prizes. pearanct.-s, so, as when seen in a Mirror or Polishd I~idy of any intended shape, the Reflection shall shew a design. By the Du~ptruks, how to draw parts of many Figures into one, when seen through a Glass or Christal cut into many Faces. LONDON, Printed, and sold by. Joseph Moxon at Ludgate By Jo,~'phMoxen Hyd &c. Price 7 sh. Hill; at the Sign of Atlas ]673

] 4 Bulletin ~ the Scientific Instrument Society No. 64 (2000) Commentary those signed 'Made by J. Moxon'. The stock. Certainly, in printing a priced second issue was certainly being sold by catalogue of instruments, however re- This 1673 broadsheet is by no means James Moxon, and all such examples stricted that listing, Moxon was well Joseph Moxon's earliest catalogue - short may date from after 1691. ahead of his time. This did not become listings appeared in his publications from routine practice until the second half of an early date. However, the early Not long after Joseph Moxon's 1669 the eighteenth century, as Londtm work- catalogues, for example that printed at advertisement of the pocket globe, his shops responded to the marketing in- the end of his 1657 edition of Edmund idea was taken-up by William Berry and itiatives of a newcomer to the trade, Wright's Erm~ in Navigation", are un- Robert Morden who advertised in 1671: Benjamin Martin, whose first priced priced and have only brief entries. catalogue is dated 1757Y Moxon was Neither is this Moxon's first separately are lately set hn'th Concave Hemi- also well ahead of the London instru- published broadsheet catal(~ue, for one spheres of all the Stars and Constellations, ment-making trade generally in using is known dating from four years earlier. very exactly done, about three inches another relatively novel technique to However, that earlier broadsheet was Diameter, which serves as a case for the market the whole range of his stock - as Terrestrial Globe of about the same slze, witness an advertisement of 1664 in intended to serve a different prime wheron is depicted all the Countries and which he explicitly indicated a will- purpose. It is titled: 'PROVES of several cheif Islands &c of the whole Earth; both Sorts of Letters cast by I JOSEPH which as one singleGk~e may he carriedin ingness to supply customers outside MOXON.' The 1669 sheet has long been the lxx:ketwithout any trouble,and of great London by the equivalent of mail-order: recognized as the earliest complete use for all Gentlemen, or others, that desire English typefounders specimen known", to know the situations of all parts of the New Globes celestial and terrestrial of but the text is of interest for the historian Earth, and the names and places of all the several sizJes, and a book for the use of of instruments since Moxon printed as Stars and Constellations in Heaven, made them, Spheres ~cordmg to the hypothesis of and sold by William Berry at the Blue Ptolemy, Ct~ernicus and Twho; also the sample copy entries for eleven items from Mathematical kwell neatly made on Pa.qe- his stock, opening with the entry for Anchor in Middle Row in ~/o/bornand by RoberfM0rden at the Atlas in Cornhdl,where board, with a book of the use of it; also 'GLOBES Clestial and Terrestrial, of all you may have a new size of Globe ten Maps great or small of all Country,Sea- sizes' set in Great Cannon Romain. inches Diameter; also all s~wts of Globes, Plats for all Navigations, and Draughts of Successive entries illustrate other fonts, Spheres, Maps, large and small, Sea-Plaits, any particular perkins Land; are made m St. each of a smaller point size. The sheet and other Mathematical Instruments?* Michaels Churchyard by Joseph Moxon terminates with an entry for 'A MAPP of Hydrographer to the Kings mt~t excellent the WORLD, in tu~ Large Royal sheets of The establishment of globe-making as a Malty. Paper' set in Brevier ltalica. Davis and trade in london was probably dependent If any person never so remote m the Countrey desire any of the aforesaid Carter reproduced the mutilated Bagford on Moxon's importation of Dutch skills. Commodifieis, he may if he sends the example in the first edition of their study Although Emery Molyneux had made Carrier, know the real kwvest prices, which of Moxon's Mechanick Exercises on the the first globes in England at the end of if he "shall by the next return, be as well whole art of Printing, but used the better the sixteenth century, he does not appear accommodated as if hunself were [~'Sertt. 21 copy from the Pepys Library at Magda- to have established a trade succession. lene College Cambridge for the second When Moxon petitioned for appointment The rudimentary banking system then in edition, which is widely available in a as Hydrographer Royal c. 1661, the place would have made retail sales of this soft-back Dover edition. fourteen eminent mathematicians who nature somewhat hazardous for both supported his application wrote of him buyer and seller, and ! am not surprised Incidentally, the Proz~ broadsheet exam- 'we know of none other in England that to have located only one advertisement ple of English Romain font provides the makes Globes, but himself or hath done in which Moxon made this offer to deal earliestreference known to me for Joseph these 20 years last past ''7, indicating a directly with distant customers. For Moxon's pocket globes, which in the 1673 break of at least two decades in globe books, the normal process was for catalogue are said to be three inches manufacture in London. Following that private buyers living outside London diameter and are priced at 15 shillings re-introduction, Sarah Tyacke has noted was either to work through a London (75p): that it was Moxon's apprentice William agent who trusted them sufficiently well Berry, together with Robert Morden to provide credit, or to work through a Concave Hemispheric, wherein is depicted (probably also apprenticed to Moxon) local bookseller - leaving the two trades- all the STARS and CONSTELLATIONS in followed by Morden's apprentice Philip men to deal with the transfer of stock and HEAVEN. And serves as a Case for a Lea 's and Moxon's own son ]ames, who monies. However, the printing of a priced TerrestrialGLOBE. Made portable for the jointly took the craft into the eighteenth list presupposes an expectation of sub- Pocket. By Joseph Moxun, Hydr. century. Through Joseph Moxon, they stanhal retail over-the-counter sale, and established it firmly as a distinct part of the carrying of stock to sell to the buyer In recent years Joseph Moxon has been the English mathematical instrument- who has seen a list and then sought-out credited generally with being the first making tradition. the seller at his premises. The extstence of maker of pocket globes", and specifically a growing retail trade in goods of this the first maker of a pocket terrestrial In addending lists of his publications to nature is evidenced by the two other globe with the case lined with celestial most of the texts that he published, sub~ls in this series, John Seller and gores, with that combination dated to Joseph Moxon was following a long Philip Lea, who at various periods 1659) ~ Neither claims is supportable. The established trade practice. As a map opened additional retail outlets in the evidence cited here points only towards maker and publisher, his inclusion of west end of the city, renting booths in Moxon as pioneering the London sale maps and charts followed an advertising Westminster Hall to take advantage of and manufacture of pocket terrestrial technique pioneered in London by Ro- the crowds associated with meetings of globes in a case lined with celestial gores, bert Walton in 1655.'° Any originality in Parliament." and this can be dated to in or shortly Moxon's approach merely consisted in before 1669. For the record, two distinct continuing the trade practice of advertis- Conchmion issues of this pocket globe are known, ing pr/ced books, to pricing the maps, with the examples signed 'Londini globes, spheres and paper mathematical The depressing aspect of a study of this sumptibus J.Moxon' being later than instruments that were also a part of his nature, is just how few examples survive

Bulletin of the Scientific immmwnt Society No. 64 (2000) 15 of the instruments advertised by Moxon. This catalogue is analysed m D.J. Bryden, father's business see D.J. Bryden, 'Capital in As I noted in the article on paper 'Made m Oxfl,rd: John Prulean's 1701 Catalo- the Dand(m Publishing Trade: James Moxon's uxslruments, the historian and collector gue of Mathemalx'al Instruments', O.wmens~a, Stock Disposal of 169R, a 'Mathematical la~ttery',The Llbra~, 6th series,19 (1997), pp. are simultaneously frustrated by the fact (1~31, pp. 263-28g. 293-350. that so few examples have survived, and 3. D.J. Brvd,na, 'The Instrument-maker and challenged to locate and identify what the Printer: Paper Instruments Made in 12. E. Wright, Certain Errors m Naz,l~atam, the printed sources indicate was being ~,venteenth Century b.mdon', Bulletin of the (l~mdon, 1657), sig.2Y4r. manufactured and sold. I once saw a Scwnt!tic Instrument .ca~'U'tv, No. 55 (iq~7), Moxon paper quadrant, but at the time I pp. 3-15. 13. Davis & Carter, 0p. cd. (note 4), p. 360. did not appreciate its rarity.;otherwi~ no surviving paper instruments from his 4. J. Moxon, Meclulmck Exercr,,es on the Whoh' workshops appear to be known. As to Art ~ Prmtm¢ Ho83-4L ed. H. Davis and H. 14. H, Wynter & A.J. Turner, Sc#ent!ficInstru- nwnts (hmdlm, 1975), p. 73. Moxon's globes, Dr Richard Dunn's Carter, 2nd revL,~xl~xin (l.zmdon, 19621 is the sterling work in making available data definitiveaccount. accumulated over four decades bv the 15. S Edell, 'Cimcave Hemispheres of the 5. G. Jagger, 'h~'ph Moxon FRS and the Starry Orb', Bulletin of the Scwnt!fic Instrument late Helen Wallis, shows iust how littleof Royal Socie~", Notes and R~xonls i~f the Royal S~lety, No. 7 (198c;), p. 6. his gkg'~emaking has survived the ra- S¢~'u'tv ~ hmdon, 49 (19qS), pp. 193-208 vages of time."' There are a g(n~ly handful of pocket globes in various 16. E. Arher (ed.),The Term CatahRues, 3 vols h J. Moxon, Mechan#ck Exercises or tile (hmdtm 1903-6),(Trinity, 1671), pp. I, 80-81. public and private collections, a pair of D~trme Of thlnd W~rks ([~md~m, 1677), sig. the 8-inch gkg~es at Skolkoster Castle in A4r; ~bid. Mechamck Exercise.... apphed to the Sweden and four examples of the u,hoh" art of Prmtm¢ fl~mdon, 1083), pp. 19, 53. 17. Jagger ap. oil. (note 5), p. 195. "English' gkg'~e. There do not appear to be any armillary spheres, though for 7. J. B~*ker, G~'lstlal Observations (L(md~m, 18. S. Tyacke, hmdon Map-Sellers. 1060-1720 veals Moxon made them in three distinct 16531, sig. CSr (Tnng, 1978), p. xii. forms to illustrate the Ptolemaic, Coper- 8. G. ~harton, Hemdrt~:.;~opellm ~ltlnl aerae nican and Tvchonic systems. Can readers 19. Idem. p. l{~. Chrlstlanae lo5~ (London, 16~31, sig. FSv. of the Bulb,ira give h'~cations for hitherto Nothing L,~ known of Moxon's first partner unrecorded examples of Moxon's work? John .qugar ]t has been sugg,.~,ted that he may 20. Ander~m et al, op. cal. (hotel), p. ii. be the man ot this name resident in Notes and References Amsterdam m i04g - see EGR Taylor, The 21. G. Wharton, Cah'ndarium Candmmm or a ,Mathemahcal PractH~om'rs qf Tmh~r and Stuart neu, aim,mack after the aM f~shion Jar ... 1664 1 R G~,' Ander~m, J Bum~,tt & B Ca'e, Enchmd. (Cambridge 1954), p. 408 (London, 1664), ~ig. FSv. Han,th.t ~# Sctcntd:ic In..trument-Makers" Trade Catah,~.ues 1(~1~1-i914 (Edinburgh: National 9 D.J. Brvden, 'Evidence from Advertising 22. Tyacke, 0p. tit. (notelS), p. xxi. Mu,.eums of ~'otland Information ~,ries h~r Mathematical in~trun~,nt Making in Lon- No 8, 19'~11 don, 11~-1714', Amlal< t~ Scu'nce, 49 (1~2), pp. ~II-37,6.330 Z'k R. Dunn & H. Wallis, British Ghats up to 2. R. Holland, GI,%" N,,te~ l[4th ednl(b, ford, 18.~) a proi,islonal lnlcnto~ (Privately printed, for Henry Clements. 1701 ), 441. ]-he text of this 10. M. McC. Gatch, 'John Bagtord, I~.~k.,~,ller hmdon 1998). h~tlng was rtT,nntecl in R T Gunther, Earlu and Antiquary', British Dbnln¢ Journal, 12 Science m Oxfi,rd (1~22-4~;1. pp i, II~L but the (19861, pp. l~H7l. Author ~ address: tyl~graphy of the original was ru~t mamtain,~l Felbr(¢g Hall and error., ~ere thus introduced into the text II. For James Moxon's winding down of his Norwich NRII 8PR

The Scientists' Tale

in August 1999 the Royal Mail issued a

7 set of hmr stamps under the title 'Scientists' Tale' to 'honour British Scientists and their di~overies which have shaped the world'. These were i , part of the Royal Mail's Millennium celebrations consisting of 48 'Millen- nium Stamps' that were pri~uced for this occasion. ]he original artwork of th¢.,se stamps has been on show at a special exhibition at The British Library in l~mdon. The first day cover repro- duced here was arranged by Dorothy Raddley, who is severely dibbled. She asked our Executive Officer to put a Scientists' T01e number of first-day covers through the Society's franking machine to achieve this inter~ting envelope.

BullHin of the Scientific Instrument Society No 64 (2000) ] Raoul Heilbronner and Early Mathematical Instruments

A.J. Turner

Fig.1 Cover of the sah" catah~c,ue of the mathematical mstruraents in Heilbr(mner's Fig.2 Instruments from Heilbronner's collection from the catalogue of the sale of 8 '~ March stock. 1922.

The sale of 'the extensive collection of 14, rue des Bois at Bellvue (presumably whatever use they can be however, the early mathematical instruments ...clocks, the small town close to Meudon and entries are transcribed or summarized in watches .... antiquarian scientific books', S6vres which in 1864 had a population of Appendix 1. Analysis of this produces the held in the H6tel Drouot, Paris, sale- 453 inhabitants'). He also owned propery groups shown in Table 1. Nearly half are room 7, on Wednesday 8'h March 1922,~ which he rented out at 78, rue Bonaparte." clocks, another fifth are garden sundials was unusual in several respects. Firstly A specialist in applied art ob~cts from the while gk~es and spheres together make because sales devoted entirely to scien- late Middle Ages to the late 18~' century, up a group the same size as that tific ob~-ts were a rarity in the late 19" Heilbronner was particularly involved composed of non-garden sundials. These and early 20'h century. Secondly because with sculpture, domestic furniture and groupings show that in Heilbronner's the entire group was offered as a single garden furniture. He also dealt in entire shop stock, decorative instruments good lot, 'because of the interest that this buildings either ruined or whole. Thus in for furnishing either house or garden held precious collection of mathematical in- 1911 he was negotiating for the purchase the main position. The smaller, mathema- struments presents by its completeness'. of the ruins of a romanesque church in tical instruments that he possessed hardly Thirdly because this was the fourth in a Tours, and in 1914 purchased the Deanery appear and it can only be assumed that series of twenty four sales of the of Chalons-sur-Sa6ne which he dis- the much larger number of mathematical sequestrated stock of the German an- mantled stone by stone and shipped in instruments sold in 1922 represent a tiques dealer established in Paris until its entirety to a warehouse near Paris." private collection which was not incorpo- 1914, Raoul Heilbronner, sales which Sculpture and garden ornaments com- rated into his shop stock. would punctuate the auction seasons prised the contents of seven of the twenty from 22 ~' June 1921 to 9 'h October 1924. sequestration sales, and it is possible, since there are several entries in his sales and purchases ledger for stone or marble Table 1: Instruments in the 1914 Although Heibronner was a leading sundials on pillars or other kinds of base Inventory, based on HP Box III, figure in the Paris antiques trade in the 3 which must have been garden dials, that inventory late 19 d' century with a commercial net- it was through these that he became work extending through Europe to Brit- aware of the interest of early mathema- Ck~cks 27 ain and North America, many of the basic tical instruments. Sundials m stone or marble 12 facts of his career, including his exact birth Other sundials 7 and death dates (c. 1857-c. 1935 see Globes 7 below), remain unknown. Of German Heilbronner traded on a very large scale. Armillary spheres 2 birth,2 he moved to France at an unknown The inventory of his stock which was Clepsydra 1 date. ]n France his only son, Henri, was annotated closed on 19~ August 1914 by born, as were his two daughters who both the notary charged with the sequestra- Sand-glasses I Microscopes I married French dealers c. 1911, although tion, Jacques Pelegrin, 7 ran to 8283 items." Telescopes 1 one of them for a time seems to have acted Of these 61 were instruments or clocks as her father's secretary.~ Heilbronner and virtually none are identifiable. En- Astronomical models I Astrolabes I began his business before1887, and had tries are brief: 'sablier fer' or 'cadran a shop at 3, rue des Vieux Colombier in solaire, marbre' are not un .typical, while a which street, at number 8 he aLso had an few such as 'syst#me universal en bois Total 61 apartment until 1911 when he moved to peint' are virtually impenetrable. For

Bulletin of the Sc=entific Instrument Society No. 64 (2000) J 17 ii ments. '° This was the sale which in- cluded instruments from the collection P .... ~ of the Strozzi family," but in the event Heilbronner purchased nothing at the sale, perhaps because he had already had " ,i! his pick. On 3rd July 1908 his purchase b(x)k records the purchase of twenty instruments from Prince Strozzi, Flor- ence.': Late in 1911 there was question of a visit fia)m Mensing to Heilbronner in Paris but it is unclear whether this took

., . place. That the two men met seems certain, but whether this happened :ii ! before or after the outbreak of war is i not yet known. Nor is very much known about Heilbronner's career after 1914. According to Maria Rooseboom," based on verbal information from the silver- smith and antiques dealer, C.J. Feeterse, Heilbronner travelled about 'collecting and trading all over the world'. One of his points of call, up to 1925, was C.J. Feeterse's brother, J. Feeterse. Probably Heilbronner's main base was Geneva Fig.3 Instruments from Heilbronner~ collection from the catalogue of the sale of 8'* March where he was visited in 1932 by Robert 1922. S. Whipple."

This impression is born out by an to have been purely commercial. In The archive upon which the foregoing examination of such records of sales Heilbronner's address book there is no account is largely based had itself been and purchases as survive. The sales private address for Mensing, only that of included in one of the sequestration ledger for 1887-1914 records 26 sales of his company F[rederikl Muller and the sales where it was purchased by Tudor instruments of all t}3x~s together with entry is for the company not for Mensing Wilkinson who in 1952 presented it to two group sales of instruments to Max who is listed merely as one of two the Library of Congress." From his Rt~e~eim in March 1902 for which no contacts there, the other being Flits Lugt papers Heilbronner emerges as a hard- details are given. Sun'iving bills from who worked for Mensing from 1901 to working business-man, successfully sell- 1804-1914 record the sales of 15 instru- 1914. In 1911 the Muller company ing decorative antiques in Europe and ments. The purchase ledger for 1809 to purchased some general antiques from North America.'* His purchases were 1908 however reveals the acquisition of Heiibronner and on 7'h November Heft- nearly all made from other dealers 105 instruments besides that of two bronner wrote to them ordering a copy scattered throughout Europe even pur- 'collections' noted down without details. chases in Paris auctions being few and As shown in Table 2 the range of of the catalogue of their forthcoming auction which would include instru- direct buying from private persons even instruments bought is rather wider than rarer. Rapid turnover must have been those listed in 1914. Although it is clear highly important, for Heilbronner's that Heilbronner was selling instruments profit margin, although it could attain to collectors, he may also have been Table 2: Purchases 1899-1904 60%, even 100%, was normally between accumulating them I~or himself as the 25% and 30%. Occasional notes in his plaquette announcing the sale of the papers show that he had repairs made, sequestrated instruments in 1922 would Instruments of unspecified did not scruple to have the missing claim that the collection contained over nature 30 member of a pair of objects made to 10(X1 pieces excluding the 150 early books (+ a collection size unknown) match and make up, and that he concerning the subject. That Heilbronner Stone sundials 15 sometimes participated in auction rings. had complemented the instruments with Other sundials 15 He would lend to public exhibitions, a small specialized library suggests that Sand-glasses 8 Globes & spheres 7 notably 15 instruments to the Universal he had indeed a personal interest in the Exhibition retrospective of precision subject.So too does the fact that although Astrolabes 4 Clocks 4 instruments in 1900, and preferred to no sales to them are recorded, the details see objects before considering their of such notable collectorsas Lewis Evans Surgical instruments 4 (+ a collectionsize unknown) purchase. As a result he travelled and Albert Nachet are recorded in his extensively. Most of his customers were address b(~)k. Telescopes 4 Compasses 3 private collectors, although on 6a' March Balances 3 1907 the South Kensington Museum Heilbronner's scientific collections of- purchased a boxed set of balances for fered for sale en bh~c in 1922 were Microscopes 3 Barometers 1 £2. He communicated with his inter- purchased en blpc by A.W. Mensing. locutors in any one of five languages all Incorporated into his extensive collection Casting counters 1 Measuring instruments 1 fully mastered. That he should have many of them were included in the sale been the victim of a sequestration seems of instruments that Mensing made in Astronomical circle I Dividers 1 highly unjust even if, ironically, it is 1929/30 to the Adler Planetarium, Chi- thanks to it that something can be cago, where they remain today." Between known today about Raoul Heiibronner Heilbronner and Mensing there had been Total 105 and his collection of mathematical some contact before the War, but it seems instruments. I 18 Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society No. 64 (2000) i Notes and References Appendix: Mathematical Instruments listed m the 1914 Inventory of I. Notice de I'importante coiltctmn d'instru- Heilbronner's stock. Source HP Box ill, Inventory 3. Values in French francs. ments mathematulues ancwns ...montres, horlogrs, pendules, etc. Lwres scient~ques ancums in'ov¢- nant de la liquidation des biens de M. Raoul 1 196 Cadran solaire sph~rique marbre 600 H¢ilbronner ...ayant fair I'obfff d'un nusure de 2 1031 Cadran solaire sph~rique marbre 4110 siquestre de guerre don't la quatriehme t~,nte aux 3 1167 Cadran solaire A canon, marbre et bronze L.XW 550 encheres public aura heu II Paris H6tel Drouout, 4 2053 Carcasse d'horloge goth[ique] fer 200 .Salle No 7 le Mardi 8 Mars 1922, il trois heures 5 2O54 Carcasse d'horloge gothlique] fer 160 ...(Paris,1922). 6 2055-9 Other clocks 2. Possibly in Berlin, or its region, to where 7 2095-8 Other clocks, probably Renaissance he corresponded in later years with a Max 8 2112 Cadran roue mobile cuivre do~ 60 Heilbronner. 9 2113 Cerc]e de cadran 40 10 2136-47 Renaissance table clocks or parts thereof 3. labra~, af Congress Quarterly ~ournalaf Current 11 3256 Acquis#tions, x, 3, 1953, p. 15|. Heilbronner Cadran solaire pierre 4OO 12 3278 Clepsydre Papers (hereafter HP), Library of Congress, no value given 13 3364 Cadran solaire pierre polychron~ 1500 Washington D.C., BOx III. 104 and Box I/2. 14 3621 162. [ thank Stlvio A Bedini for drawing my Cadran solaire pierre i incrustations 700 attentkm to the existence of the archive in 15 3858 Sablier fer 750 Washington. Henri Heilbrmmer was stillalive 16 4031 2 sph6res Empire (terrestre & et c~leste) 800 in the early 1970" living in Lucerne where he 17 4198 Cadran solaire ardoise A armoiries 550 was visited by Roderick and Majorie Webster. 18 4199 Cadran solaire ardoise A armoiries 550 He claimed to have no papers or archives 19 4227 Cadran solaire pierre polychron~ A inscription 40O concermng his father's busmen. Information 2O 4297 Cadran solaire pierre polychmn~ 150 fnnn Marjorie K. Webster, October 1999. 21 4356 Horloge ronde A calendrier cuivre dor~ Ren[aissance] 250O 22 4433 Cadran solaire marbre 4. AdoIphe Joanne, Dictionnaire des commu- 450 23 5187 Cadran solaire marbre nes de la France (Paris, 1964), p. 227. 250 24 5238 Petite boite ivoire A cadran solaire 50 5. HP Box I/l. 5320July 1911 &251. 25 52514 Renaissance clocks - vase form 500 6. For Tours see a letter from G. Delperier, - spherical with three caryatids 1600 49, rue du C,azon~tre, Tours 30 June 1911. lip La Fortune 6O0 Box 9. For the Deanery of Chalons see Paul - plate A 5 pieds 900 Guillaume, Dr0um', h~er et aulourd'hui {Paris, 26 5474 Cadran solaire ardoise stir coionne pierre 5O0 1986), pp. 100-101. 27 5613 an]d cadran solaire avec iune pierre 800 28 5657 armillaire bois peint 1000 7. Jacques P~legrin, administrateur iudi- 29 5694 dran solaire marbre grav~ no value given ciaire, 5, rue des Beaux Arts, Paris. HP Box 3O 58O3 2/Lettedx~ 4. g[ran]d Cadran solaire pierre polygonale XVle 2000 31 6263 microscope avec gamiture en cuir orn~ d'or no value given 8. There were actually less than this as 32 6264 Iongue-vue s/pied cuivre grav~ no value given several blocks of numbers are blank. Even 33 6265 Syst~me universel en bois peint no value given not less than 8000 items are listed. 34 6266 Gl(~e terrestre s/pied haut no value given 9. For details of the acquisition and the 35 6267 Globe terrestre s/pied bas no value given dk~cussions to which it gave rise, see Liha 36 7813 Globe c~leste cuivre grav~ oriental A personnages 24O0 Taub, "'Canned astronomy" versus Cultural 37 7814 Asmdabe cuivre grav~ oriental et argent 1200 Credibility': the Acquisition of the Mensmg 38 7919 2 sphtnes - pied bois cir,, fileton XVIIe 25OO Coilectkm by the Adler Planetarium', Journalof 39 8118 Sphere armillaire cuivre grav(~ - pied bois noir 2OO0 the Histo~. ofC.ollections, 7 (1995), pp. 243-350. 10. HP Box 1 volume 1, 19 June 1911; 7 July 1911. A dunning letter asking [or the balance who had been a regular cust(nner of Heil- (1479-1800) {Amsterdam, 1924), which is n~v of 19~10 francs due for a group of general bnnmer before the War. No instrument signed also in the Price Archive (see pix-vX~ n(~te). 'i antiques; 30 September 1911 sending a bill for by Habermel was included in the catak~gueof called on September 24" 1932 on Mr Raoul a pair of earthenware vases, a marble bust and Albert Lehmaon's collection when this was Heilbronner, 8 rue Charles Bonnet, Geneva - a pottery vessel with cover; 7 November 1911. sold. Collection Lehmann 3e partie. Tableaux an old man o4 about 75 years old - who told 11. Catalogue des Objets d'Art et de haute ancu,ns ...abjets d'art .... 12 et 13 [uin 1925 me that he formed this collection. He lived in Curwsit~ de I'Anhquit~, du Mo.wn Age et de In (Paris, 1925). Several of the instruments Parts, and his ¢xdlectionwas taken and sold by Renaissance comprenant elntw] alutres] la Collec- ascribed to Habermel m the Strozzi Collection the French Cawemment during the Great War tion de cam&s, emaux, sculptures et intailles de la however were not actually signed by him, so It was purchased at the auction by Mr succession de Mine la l~ulan]ii're z~n der Does de the instruments fa)ld to Lehmann could have Mensmg and taken to Amsterdam where 1 Willebois nde de Crasswr, /as Instruments de been lot 306, 'Cadran solaire en forme de table saw it. It was afterwards purchased by Pmf nmt, hhnatiques de la Famille Stnrzzi, etc. ainsi car~e, en cuivre gravtt. II contient, au centre, Fox to h)rm part of the contents of the Adler qu une collection d'obffts d'art industriel de une l~m=~ole dispos6e au milieu d'un cadran Museum m Chicago'. I am grateful to Willem modiles, etc. ayant ~t~ rl,unk~ ccanme base d'un gradu~. Au revers, un calendrier per~tu~ Morzer 8ruvl~ for this quotation as for heipfill mus~ d'arf industri¢l (Amsterdam, 1911). indiquant Its jours, ks mois et les signess du c~nnmen~ on the present paper. zodiaque. XVlle sidle'. 12. HP Box 5/I Purchases 1899-1908. One of 15. Dbra.ry of Congres¢ Quarterly ]ournal ... them, an 'instrument asmmomique avec ca- 13. Letter to Derek Price. II August 19~, (note 3), p. 143 Price Archive, M~x:liat~ue Sp6cialL~,Cit6 des dran solaire par Erasmus Habern~' was sold 16. It was because the archive c~mtamed so to Albert Lehmann on 13 November 19(}8 for Sciences et de l'InduL~trieParis at La Villete. R(msel~n was director of the Rijksmuseum much material oelatmg to the art and antiques 1000 francs.HP Box 5, Sales ledger.Another of trade m the United States that Wilkinson was them may have been lot 393 'a square dial, voor de Geschiedenis der Natuurwetenschap- pen at Leiden, now the Museum Boerhaave. induced to present itto the Libraryof CongP~.-.~. copper gilt with pn~ection of the Zodiac and table of Planets. Signed E. Habernaq; early 17th 14. This was noted by Whipple in the fnmt of a Author ~ address: century, in the sale of the collectkm of Max copy of Max Engelmann, Collectwn Ant. Men- 24, rue du Buisson Richard Rosenheim of Belsize Park Gardens, London, sml¢, Amsterdam. Old Scientific Instrument 78600 Le Mesnil-le-Roi, France

8ulletinoftheScientif~lrmnunentSociety No. 64 (2000) 19 The Trip to Russia A Report on the 18 th Scientific Instrument Symposium Peter de Clercq

contn~l), and the meals and receptions were splendid. The pivotal figure, who was with us all the time, and even took .,~me of us on an impromptu excursion below Moscow to marvel at the sump- tuous Stalinist underground stations, was Vassili Bon.~w (Fig. 1). A former Russian squash champion, he now emerged as the Ru.~,~ian champion of the .,~'ientific instrument. Not realh.' an obvious role for a re.archer who is not attached to a museum and who is also not primarily working on instruments; his most recent publications deal with the early to:hnical development of television.

Sessions Fig.l lit..;/; Iqml.oi" ttw tmttt.lx" So, re. taru ~" the l~'al Or~ant:in¢, Comnnttee. The sessions were held in the labyr- rt'cel~ ,1 t,r,'..q'nt .from SIC Preslth'nt Jim inthine sky.raper building of the l;re- B,'nnett t,~'r dinner in St. Pet,'rsbur~. Photo sidium of the Russian Academy of by. N,'II Brown. Sciences in M~cow. The opening .~.,ssion, with addresses by Academician Guliayev Whereas ~me years ago, organizational and SIC President Jim bennett, was made problems cau.,~-'d a Scientific Instrument memorable bv virtuoso Lidia Kavina .~-ielv excursion to Russia to be called who gave a laminating Performance on off, this time not even bomb .~ares could the thermenvox, an electromusical instru- deter ~me 40 delegates to gather in ment - a beat-frequency audio (~ciilator *h~-ow and St. Petersburg from 20 to 2t, Fig.2 A m,.,al mtcrh.fi' di~rmx: tlw - developed in 1920 bv the Russian Scptember 1994-) to participate in the openm~¢ .,a,ssi0n m Moscow Lidia Km,ma .scientist Lev Sergeevich Tt.rrnen (Fig. 2). Scientific Instrument Commissum's an- plays the thermem~x or teremin. Phota by. nual symposium They came to visit Nell Brown. The programme booklet announced mu.,,eums and collections they had not twentv-two papers, but fi~ur of the~ .,~'en before, and to meet Russian collea- were not read, partly due to accidents Graham/orrerv ml~lel; the second is the gues. who proved to be ~ ht~spitable that which, sadly, prevented lleana Chinnici r~,~m-sized gl(~e, of which the Great they even kept for their instrument open from Italy and Efthvmu~ Nicolaidis from Academic Globe in the Lomonosov trit;nds the State Hermitage after chasing Greece i~rom participating. As can be Mu.,~,um (.~ below) is another example; hours! judged from the list printed below, only then came the optical prolection planetar- a few papers touched the main theme as ia; fourthly we now have the large Organizing Committee formulated in the first circular, viz. computer databases that generate images 'Relations between Russia and other on a small computer screx,n, projected What had prompted our Rus,;ian collea- countnl.,s in the field of ~ientific instru- onto an Omni-max type screen. I~cause gut.", to invite the SIC symposium was ments'. Yet, on the whole they were of the~ developments, the Atwo(~ gh~e the 275 '" annixersary of the Russian interesting enough, and it was grati~,ing fell out of favour. It was first changed Academy of Sciences, foundt~ by Czar to hear that Dr. Borisov intends to into a terrestrial gh~e, and later sawn Peter the Great in 1724. During the 17'" publish a volume of proceedings in into halves and stored away. The damage S.vmpo.,,ium held at N~ro, Denmark, the English with, if possible, Russian trarcsla- done to the object in the process is thwe key figures of the National Orga- tions or abstracts. Rather than giving a acceptable if one considers it as a mere nl,,ing (~:ommittee had come to present brief synopsis of each paper, ! just single exhibit, but not if one thinks of it as an their first circular: chairman Yuri Gu- out two papers that I particularly liked. historical artefact, and Marvin tried to liavev, Director of the Institute of Radio h~k at what has been done from both lmg,neenng and Eh,ctronics of the Acad- Saving a Worn-out Planetarium perspectivL.,s. Equally controversial, con- emy of Sciences, vice-chairman Vladimir sidering the costs involved, was the Sit~"¢. Vice-President of the Union of In a well-presented multi-media talk, recent decision to put the poor Atwood ."k-ientffic and Engineering Associations, Marvin ~It of the Adler Hanetarium globe together again and transfer it back and the ~-ienhfic ~.cretarx' Vassili l~wi.~v and Astronomical Museum in Chicago to the Adler where, in an adapted of the Inshtute of Hi~,torx' of Science and di~us..~l the controversial treatment of pm'sentation, it serves as a crowd-pleaser [tx'hnolog.v of the Academy of Sciences. the Atwi~ globe. Built early in lhe once again. .Meeting them one year later on their prt.'~,nt centu~; this 15-fis~t metal gh~e home temtorv, it became evident how perforated with nearly 700 holt~ to Thermometric Correspondence much work and influence the,," had put simulate the night sky has long been a into the event. In a countq' in constant major attraction in the Adler. In Marvin's Sofia Talas, formerly assistant to Margar- turmoil and with much evidence of typology of planetariums, it is a repre- ida Archinard in Geneva, now curator of poverty in the strt~.,ts, the symposium sentative of the second of four genera- the Museum of the History of Physics at went with clockwork precision (except tions, which are all represented in the Padua University, al~ gave a fine paper, for one event outside the organizers' Adler. The first is the table-top George that deserv~ to be extended into a longer

211 Bulletin of the .',;cieniafic Instrument S~ciety No. 64 (2000) Sciences. Likewise, in an attempt to create a national workh~rce, he tried to get skilled arti~ns from the West to settle in his country. Thus, as Vassili l~ri.~,v told us in his paper, in 1726 a workshop was ~t up, attached to the Academy of Sciences, under an instrument maker Leutmann from L~,ipzig,and it employed forty men. One would like to know more about this colos~l enterpri~. It was remarkable that during our later visits to collections, we saw not a single instrument that was attributed to Leut- mann. A Latin inventory of the instru- ment collection in the Acadtnny, drawn up in 1741,'does record I.G. Leutmann as maker of several instruments; perhaps he never signed them. The inventory al.~ lists a sundial 'artifice ioh Bradlee, Fig.3 Fhc Museum t!~ the taculty qf Physics at Mascow State Umversity. From left to right M(~'uae', and this we folmd displayed Trienke z~an der Spek, Klaus Staubermann, Marian Fournier, F~fia Talas and our Russian in the I.x~monosov Mu~um in St. Peters- guide. Phato by. Nell Brown. burg.'

Besides the names of Leutmann and Bradlee, we heard little about skilled arti~ns 'imFn~rted' by the Czar. The many well-known names of Western makers in the 1741 inventory, leave no doubt that, as one might expect, in the early veals of the Academy's existence the "bulk of the u~struments were im- ported from the West. But as was equally to be expected, the country seems gradually to have grown less dependent on imports and developed an instru- ment-making industry of ds own. rh,s is no more than an impression, gained from Rug,~ian signatures or name plates that I could identify on instruments dunng our visits. A proper study of the development of the Russian instrument- making industry ,s a desideratum, it g

Fig.4 i, the micrasc0pe galh'~ m the State Polytechmcal Museum m Moscau'. Onc-nu'trc hm,¢, achromath" microscope, made in 1808 by. I. Thteman fl~r G. Parrot, rector ~ Tartu uniPersity, and acquired by. the Russum Aa~demi¢ of S,'i,'nces in 1827. it is made after a d,~lcn by Tartu-born F. A,'pinus, u,h,, published his d,~rcn in 1784. Ph,,to h¢ Ned Br,,u,n. publication. In the university collection Ls meter to researchers all over Europe.' The a rare univer.~l thermometer, made in Micheli du Crest papers ai.~ contain 1757 by G.E Brander of Augsburg, after letters he exchanged with Brander, and the principles of Jacques Barthel6my it is g(x~ to know that Sofia is planning Micheli du Crest, who in 1741 had to publish these, as instrument makers' anonymously published his Description correspondences are a rari~'.: d'un thermomi'tre uniwr.q'l. Drawing on correspondence pr(,,served in the Micheli Importing Instruments and du Crest family archives in Geneva, she Instrument Makers di~ussed his contnbutions to thermo- metry, and his relations with other Czar Peter the Great had the ambition to scientists, including J.A. Nollet. From emulate the achievements of the West. He these letters it emerges that, just like persuaded ~holars of fame, including Fahrenheit had done .,~)me two decades the mathematicians Leonard Euler and Fig.5 Th,' I~u,~tk, m,'ra I,udd,a~" m St before him, Micheli du Crest sent Daniel Bernoulli, to come to St. Peters- Petersburg. with the astnmomlcal hn~rr m complimentary specimens of his thermo- burg to staff his new Academy of sca~)ldin¢. Photo by, Nell Brou,n.

Bulletin of the Sc..ntific Instrument Society No. 64 (2(Xl0) 21 Fig.6 Cul/,cpcr tH~trtHc contpas> Itl the LonhvIO:~Z' A|lt~.ellttt, ~t. Petersburg Photo by. Nell Brown.

Fig.7 Astroh~be ¢dmmeter 3.]5 mmL made by Arsemus m 1568 It would be heartening if the SIC Svmpo- u~s trans,'red to the Lomom~z, Mu.~'um in 1"959 from the Saltvhn,- slum's being held in Mt~cow were to be Shchedri~ State Public Libra~ m what was then Lenmxradl The an incentive for such research to be ,¢,,ht-lettered text c,,mmem,,rates that it uus once property of the undertaken and published. Gnm,tduchess ~i'lena Parh,z~, acc,,rdm~ to u,h,,m it u~,t to beh~n,~ to the Bohemmn soldier and statesman the Duke Albrecht v,,n Visits in Moscow Wallensh,m (1583-1634). Ph,,h, by. Nell Brown.

Monday 20'" September, we made an excursmn to the nearby State University elegant drawer boxes. Th¢.~e belonged fi~llowed by a poster ses,sion. A poster budt in 1953 in Stalin's favourite 'wed- to the microscopist Johan Nathaniel presented by curator Olga Melnikova ding cake' style. A crowded room, Lieberkt~hn, famous for designing the gave a glimp~ of the instrumental and named Museum of the Faculty of generally adopted LieberkUhn mirror horological riches hidden in the stores of Physics, contained rather run-of-the-mill for illuminating opaque objects. In 1765, the State Historical Museum, situated apparatus of the 19'" and mainly 20'" nine ,,'ears after his death, his micro- right on the Red Square that we had centurv. Much of this had b~n imported scopes and specimens were bought by visited during two con.~utive days. We from (~'rmanv or France (including ~me Empress Catherina II to be used in were told that a group visit hacl been hne acoustic apparatus), but Russian teaching? considered, but fi~und impracticable. The manufacturers were also represented museum hours some 7IX} sundials, (Fig. 3). The nlorning of our third and final day in clocks and watches and over 1300 Mt~cow, 22 '' September, was devoted to scientific instruments; .,a~me of these had The next dav was more exoting. After a an excursion to the Kremlin. We ~w the been presented in 1905-07 from the ~hort visit to the Red Square. where State Armoury, a stunning array of private collection of P.I. Schukin. many of us ventured into the majestic thrones, carriagt~ and sledges, c¢~stumes, GL'.~I, Ru,,~ia's largest department store iewel~; arms and armour, hames~.,s and The session in the Presidium ended with with its glass-n~ffed interior, we walked a large collection of sih'er and gold the plenary meeting of the Scientific to the State Polytechnical Museum. obiects brought to Russia as diplomatic Instrument Commission, where among (h'igmatmg from a great i~dytechnical gifts; .,~me clocks and a pair of large uther matters the venue for the 20'" L.xhibition held in 1872 to mark the 2(X)'" brass globes (no maker's name detected) symposium was decided. The future anniversary of Peter the Great, the were the only instrumental items we symposiums will be held in Oxford mu~,um was opened later in that decade could fli~cov~,r. We then toured the (200i)), Sweden (2001) and Athens in a building that is a fine .~pecimen of the Kremlin, where we admired the Czar's (2(X)2); possible venues for future meet- Ru~.~ian Revwal architecture. Mu.~,um 40-ton cannon cast in 1586 and the Czar's ings are the USA, Spain, Portugal or director G. (.;rigorian welcomed us with 1~41, weighing over 200 tonnes, but with Germany. a historical expo.,,t; on the coll¢~,-tions, and a large .,~,'tion that broke off shortly after pre~,nted us with comphmentary copies it was cast in 1737, .~ that the bell could We left Moscow feeling that fi~r instru- oI: their two-~ olume .~uvenir b~n)k Rehcs never be u~'d. Part of the group even ment enthusiasts there is more to see in or Scwnce and l'echm,lo¢,11 itl Rl4~t4hltl ~'.,queezed in a visit to Denin's Mauso- Russia's capital than could be accommo- 3,fu-eums (l~q2/1~6), which contain leum. Back at the bus, we were told that dated in three half-day outings. And that de.,~'ript,ons in'Russian and Engli.~h plus there was no time left for the projected can only be considered g~Jd news. colot, r photographs of .~me one hundred visit to the Museum of Geodesy at the exh~bfls in the Poh,tt~-hnical ,Mu.,~,um Moscow State University of Geodesy St. Petersburg and related mt,seums .n the count~'. We and Cartography. This caused some then looked at the relevant sections, grinding of teeth, as our appetites had The night train was to take us to St. especially ~,eismography, clocks and been whetted by picturt~ of .,~)me of their Petersburg for an optional two-day ~vatche',, calculating machim,-s and com- twasures: a graphometer by J. Ernst excursion, in which most of us had puters, and optics. [he latter gallery Esling of Berlin, dated 1716, an I8-inch decided to participate; in fact, many includes a tme collection of micro~op~rs quadrant by Edmund Culpeper, made in had extended their stay to include Satur- (Fig. 41, where curator l.idia Shelikova 1725, and a reversible pendulum by day and part of Sunday as well. We drew our attention to the 'Lieberkuhn Rep.,~dd & Sons of Hamburg, delivered boarded in high spirits; but the next study', a cabinet tilled with micm.~opes in 1878.~ Instead, we returned to the morning it became evident that we had and nucro-preparations contained in Presidium for the final ~'sslon of papers, only travelled ~)me l(X) of the 600

-- Bulletin of the bk'ientlfic In.,,trument ~loety No. 64 (2(XX)) the Museum of Anthropoiog V and Eth- noiog V, and hou,,es among others anato- mical specimens bough! from the Am,,terdam anatomist Fredenk Ruvsch hw Peter the Great, and .,~,me crani- ometers to measure skulls The astro- nomical tower houses the M.V. Lomonosov Museum. ~ It was founded in 1947 to horu,ur M.V. Lomon~v~w (1711- 1765), one of the first Russian academi- crans, who worked in this building from 1741 onward There is a reconstruction of Lomon(~sov's study, fitted with among others a cylindrical electrical generator with a man-size conductor and a small unsigned double-barelled table air- pump. Showca~ contain instruments of which .,~me are related to him, such as a thirteen-draw telescope made fiw him in 1762 by the local instrument- maker I.I. Belyaev.'" Other 18'~-centuD• Fig.8 ,4 i'lei~'.fr0m thr ~,t'~!~Oldltl~ ~ln)lllld lib' a';tr(monlhal hm,cr oz'er tlw rl;,'er ,\'t';~,¢l, with material included a calculating machine t/w th'rmitac, e in the dist,mc,'. L~ft t,, r#flrt th; Dinvt,,r ~ th ; L,,m,m,,s,,v Museum, S,,#i,~/~das. invented and made in the latter 18 '~ Terje Brundthmd and Jim Bennett. Ph,,to b~. lan Tapdrup. century by Jevna Jacobson a clock-maker and mechanic m Nesvlzh, in the province Minsk", a T~hirnhau~n burning lens, a kilometres, due to engineering worlcs on large Culpeper graphometer and a nng Culpeper marine compass in gimbals a bridge. We made the best of it. As the dial by Metz of Amsterdam. if only we (Fig. 6), and a Cuipeper-type micn~cope train crawled towards the 'Venice of the could have spent more time in this confusingly inscribed on the specimen North', our compartments became min- treasure grove. And how we would have stage 'Harris & ~n / Bnhsh Museum / iature conference nx~ms, where many a welcomed a dt.~-,criptive catalogue of the Lond~m'. Other pieces were distinctly project was di~us.',~d and friendships instruments and clocks in this mu.~,um, earlier than L~)mont~,ov. Thus, there is a were made and renewed. preferably in English; hut that g(ws fiw all large Arsenius astrolabe, signed 'G.A. the collections we saw during our nel:x~s Gemmae Frisv Louanv Fecit ano excursions in Moscow and St. Petersburg. When at long last we arrived in St. 1568', exhibited on a'circular piece c,f red Petersburg with nine hours delay, we velvet, with in gold letters in a ~tvle of thought we had missed the mu~um visit A charming finale of our visit was a around 181k) 'Instrument Astrologtque de and the city tour scheduled for that first performance of an automaton peacock, Wallenstein. l~m de S.A.I. Madame La day. But to our amazement, our hosts made for the Czar in England, which Grande Ducbes~ Helene' (Fig 7). An- took us straight to the State Hermitage, deftly fanned out its ghttering tail. it other case in ~)int is a gunner's irL,,tru- which was kept open well into the the right tone for supper, which was ment signed 'ERHART AMMON evening just for our bedraggled group! sen'ed in a palatial setting. Having had MACtff MYCH 1579'. After a word of welcome by the Director, no occasion to go to our hotel, we felt terribly underdres.,,.d; Jim Bennett in his Dr. Mikhail Piotrovsky, vice-Director Dr. A spiral stai~a~e leads to the a.,,tnmom- speech of thanks, with a referenee to Vladimir Matveev gave us an intn~uc- ical obsen-atory, which was u.,~d be- television detective Columbo, said he felt tory talk on the ~'ientific instruments and tween 1726 and 1824, when Pulkowa like 'The crumpled curator'. A cib," tour clocks in the collection of the mu~um, in Ob~,rvaton. was built. ]-he walls and through nightly St. Petersburg ended which he refered to the work done on ceiling are decorated with early 19'h- abruptly when the driver broke ~me instruments by the late Valentin Chena- centuP:" murals of putti with instruments. traffic rule and was forcefully led away kal.: We were then shown the mu~,um, Here we saw several large tek,,~copes, as by the police, which was an uncomfor- one stunmng room after another, under- well as transit instruments by Bird and table ending of a memorable day standably at break-neck speed. The El'tel, but not the onginal John Bird mural instruments were exhibited in ,~veral quadrant. We ai.~ saw .,~me glob,.-s, areas of the mu~um. In a reconstruction The Kunstkamera including the famous Gottorp Globe, of the Czar's appartments we saw, also known as the Great Academic among others, a binocular tele~ope The next morning, Fnday 24 '~ September, Globe, wh~vse eventful 'biography' was covered in green morocco probably made the bus dnver emerged unharmed to the sublect of Va~slli ~n.,~w's paper read by Verdy in Paris~ and some of the Czar's drive us to Catherine the Great's palace dunng the symp~sium in ,'~rt~ last year lathes, at which - as many .~wereigns and of T~rskoe Selo on the .~mthern outskirts it is a hollow sphere with a diameter of aristocrats of his time - he loved to sit and of the city; in the distance, l'ulkowa over three metres. Maps of the Earth and turn ivory, w(~)den and metal ob~c~. Astronomical Observatory could be the sky are depicted on the outside and The hight~t concentration of instruments on its hill. We then return'ed to the centre reside rt,'spectively. Up to twelve People was fimnd in a special n~m which is not for three instrumental visit. To me, the could sit in. Made in the years lhr~4-1bb4 normally open to the public, as th(~e highlight was the Kunstkamem building, for the Duke of Hoistem<~ttorp, it was di~overed who returned to the Hermi- situated on Vasilvevskv Island in the presented to Peter the Great m 1713 and tage on Saturday. Here we saw, among river Newa nearly opp~site the Hermi- placed in this building in 172~, It was many other pieces, an equatorial sundial tage (Fig. 5). Built between 1718 and badly damaged bv the great tire of 1747, made by Peter the Great him.~lf, a 17.34, this was the first public mu~um in which also destroyed many of the splendid bra~ celestial gk~e by Rein- Ru.~,~ia, housing the Czar's collection of original instruments of the Academv hold and Roll of Augsburg, dated 1~, a natural and man-made raritit.'s. It is now coilet-tion. After it was restored, it was

Built,fin of the Scientific Instrument S~wiety No. 64 (2(X10) 23 Fmall,,; ! was struck by two impressive cathetometers made by Braun in ,'.it. Petersburg.

Mendeleev ai.~ worked on issues of metrolohD'. From 1893 until his death, he headed the L~,pot and Bureau of Weights and Measures in St. Petersburg." So we met him once again when we visited the Museum of Metrolo,g3/, situated in the building complex of the DT Mendeleev Institute for Metrology (Fig. 9). We were guided around by curator E.B. Ginak, who in Moscow had read a paper on the fiweign reference measures in her care. As she explained, these had been received between 1829 and 18++6from 27 countries and towns throughout the world and were used to create a scientificicallv based national measurement systen~. They were then deposited in the newh,' founded Del~t of Weights and Measure~, thus laying the foundation of the mu- seum This material was certainly worth looking at, such as a yard measure by Fig.9 hi 1 ~ t5, this lar~,,eperll~ttc chl~lfica- tlon t!f Ht'nu'nts u~as mounted tm a u~all John [kdlond, with handwritten certifi- h'adlng to the DT Mendeleev hl+,tltute ft,r cate by Henr,' Kater. l al~ hked a large Metrolo~,,t¢ Ul St. Pett'rsbur~. Photo b~ N'etl beam balance, made in Russia dated 1747. But the most impressive object was a gigantic precision balance, which Fig.lO Pn'cision bahlncc by h)set,h Nenlet: Mendeleev had ordered to be made in of Vienna, c. 1900, in the Musej of dragged from place to place until in 1948 Vienna by Jtvseph Nemetz. The mechan- Metroh~,+~, St. Petersburg. Photo ~ Nell it finally returned to Its original location ism to lift the huge vacuum jar that BrowH. covers the balance was in it,ll a master- piece of precision engineering (Fig. 10). in The tower on the Kunstkamera is pre- .,~,ntlv undergoing restoration, and we an adjoining building, we were shown Stephen Johnston, UK, Unusually ordinary wure allowed to venture onto the into Mendeleev's office, where we saw a instruments. Investigating the Mary scaffolding to admire the panorama Rieffler time-keeper and a large Collot Rose, 1545 beam balance. (Fig. 8), a fitting finale to our visit to this historically important building. V Kir.~lnot,, Russia, Experimental physics After this optional excursion to St. in Ru~ia of the 18" century Mendeleev Petersburg, which flw many had been the highlight of our visit to" Russia, we Yu. Guliayev Rusia, Devices and instru- returned to our homes filled with admira- ments for the uninvasive medical diag- (hjr two other visits in St.i'etersburg tion fiw the excellent organization of the nostics ~ere relahM to the career of the Russian whole week. Some .,+aid they are definitely chemist l)mltrv Ivanovich Mendeleev coming back one day to resume the (18~-!~17) who developed the peri(~lic Paoh, Brenni, Italy, Who made what? The contacts made with our Russian friends, dilemma of signed instruments classification of the elements. The D.i. and to draw more on the instrumental Mendeleez, Archival Museum of St. richt~ of which we had been given a taste the Netherlands, The Petersbu~, Uniz,ersitv ix situated in one in Mirscow and St. Petersburg. Anne C. t,an tfi'lden, of the lwehe (olh'gt~ lust behind the emergence of archetype instruments Kun~tkamera, a complex of twelve Appendix : Papers Read at the Identical buildings in an unbroken line, Marvin Bolt, USA, Saving a worn-out 18" Scientific Instrument Symposium constructed in the tir~t half of the 18'" planetarium: is it an artifact or an centul~' to house government b~mJit,,s, but exhibit? now u,,ed by the university. Here Note: of ~me multi-authored papers, the name given is that of the speaker Mendeh,ev worked and lived trom 1~ P Schle~,h~z; Russia, Astronomy in Mos- to IP+~

24 Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society No. 64 (2000) Hel~a 1~, Germany, Some aspects on Placidus Fixmillner OSB, 1. Direktor der 8. Matveev's booklet (note 7) mentaa'~ 'the the history of vision aids Sternwarte yon KremsmOnster', Studwn und telescope-binoculars made in Paris by Vesdi Mitteilunyffn zur C,eschichte des Benediktiner- for Peter I', which I take as a mLsnt,ading for Sara Schechner-Genuth, USA, Time well Ordens und semer Zu,el)¢e, published by the Verdy: the National Maritime Mu~um in Bayenschen Benediktinerakademie, Band 96, spent:, early modern sundials as Greenwich has a telescolx" covered in green evidence Heft 1/11 (~. Ottilien, 198S), 14~19~;. of time pressures and consumer culture morocco with gilt tooling and malu)gany mounts, signed 'Verdy A I'Observatoire'. 3. Mu.¢¢i lmpenalis Petnrpolitani Vol. !! Pars E.B. Ginak, Russia, The collection of Prima Qua Continentur Res Artificmles (Peters- foreign reference measures and its role burg, 1741). it lists some 800 scientific and 9. Two souvenir booklets in Russian are in the history of metrok)gy medical instruments, arranged by sub~. A available. Kunstkamera, 32 pages in full-col(mr transcription of the instruments section was (no year, c. 19~: ISBN 5-9~WW~q-26-O) is Enn Hendre, Estonia, The development of kindly supplied to me by colleagues at the devoted to the anthmhq~gical and ethnologi- Golicyn-Vilip's seismographs in Tartu Amsterdam Historical Museum, who made an cal collections, but has two pages on the exhibition on the cultural and scientific (Estonia) ~v museum; the texts is in Russian. relatiom between the Czar and the Dutch Museum M.V. Lomonasov (St. Petersburg, lVqS, Republic. no ISBN) contains 64 pages, is more modest, Roland W~tt/e, Norway, Norwegian char- with b/w pictures, it is also in Russian, but has acteristics of the Van de Graaf pro~,ct at 4. Described and illustrated as no. 54 in G. a three-page Engli.~ synopsis. NTH (the Norwegian Institute of Tech- Grigorian and !. Ponomawv, eds., Relics af nology, Trondheim) Scwnce and Technol ,ogvin Russian Museums Part 2 (Moscow: Polytechnical Museum 'Znanie' 10. Described and illustrated as no. 55 in Publishing Hour, 1996). The horizontal Relics of Science and Technol~..v in Russian S(99 Talas, Italy, The universal thermo- (azimuthal) analemmatic sundial with two meter of J.B. Micheli do Crest and its Museums Part 2 (Moscow, 1996). Belyaev gnon~ms and two scales is signed "J Bradlee (1710-1788) worked for the Academy of amnedions with G.F. Brander Mosco Fecit' and dates 1710-1716. The Engli~ Sciences. Of the dozens of pieces that he made watchmaker John Bradlee came to Russia in for Lormmosov, only this (me survived. Notes and References 1710, where he first worked in Moscow in the Artillery Department, and from 1716 until his 1. One was the Leiden physicist Wilk.m death in 17"25 or 1743 (the sources vary), he 11. it is described and illustrated as no. 38 m Jacob's Gravesande, who recmved it in 1741, worked at the Artillery and Fortification G. Gngorian and I/. rsirulnokov, eds, Relics ty one year before his death. It then came in Department in St. Petersburg. The Hermitage Scwnce and Technol(~ in Russian Museums p~.,ession of Leiden University and is now in has two sundials he made in St. Petersburg. ( Mixscow, 1992). the Mu~um l~erhaave. When I described it in my The Leiden Cabinet of Ph.vsics. A l:)escnpti~ 5. Described and illustrated as no. 5 in G. Catah~ue (Leiden, 1997), no. 227, ! did m~ Grigonan and V Tsiruinikov, eds., Relics of 12. Described and illustrated as nos 40, 41 know that it had been a personal gift from the Science and Technoh~cv in Russian Museums (M(~scow, 1{~2). and 42 m Relics of Science and Technt4(,~/ m maker. Russian Mu~ums (Moscow, 1992) 2. I only know three examples: Johan van 6. Described and illustrated as ms. 31, 32 Musschenbmek's letters to J.J. I~stenius in and 34 in Reli~ of Science and TechnoitNV in Russ/an Museums Part 2 (Moscow, 1996). An 13. Nathan M Brooks, "Mendeleev and Marburg, Germany; see my At the Sign of the Metmlogy', Amtnx. The Iounml of the S~vwl~. Oriental Lamp. The Musschenbnwlc u~rkshop in identical Repsold I't~,ccsible pendulum, also dated 1878, is in Teyler's Museum. .~r the Fhstory ~r Ah'hemy and Chem~st~,45, Part Lealen, 1660-1750 (Rotterdam, 1997), 158-161; 2 Ouly 19~), 116-128. Fahrenheit's letters to Lezbni-" and Boerhaa~,e, edited, translated and annotated by Pieter 7. As souvenir he gave us a 12-page hot,Jet van der Star (Leiden/Amsterdam, 1983) and with 10 dlustrati(nxs, which elaborated on his GE Brander's lette~ to the diredor of the intnxiuctory talk and was especially prepared Au#u)r ~ address: astrtmomical observatory at KremsmUnster in for our visit: Scwnt!fic Instruments and Ckwks in SIC Secrefa~ Austria: Ansgar Rabenalt, ed., 'Bnefe Georg the Collection of the State HermHa~e (St. 13 Camdrn Square Friedrich Branders, mechanici in Augsburg, an Petersburg 1999). London NW1 9UY

Collector Fair On-Line

Collector Fair was set up last summer by a student doing an MBA course at the London Business Schtn)l, and is currently undergoing expansion, it is intended for collectors l(a)king for I~)oks, comics and other collectibles to post what they want to on the site, together what they are prepared to pay, and then wait for contacts. Thus, it is an online collecting fair, which provides members with a relaxed virtual space in which to meet, chat, and trade with fellow enthusiasts. All basic sen'ices within the fair are free.

This site is currently in an experimental stage. The organizers are working with the London Business Schtnd and University College London to test the waiting list auction as a trading mechanism. The site is being expanded and lmpnwed all the time, and the organizers hope that members of the Scientific Instrument Society will be interested in getting invoh'ed At present the focus is on ephemera and memorabilia as beer I~ttles, comics, scripophily (international bonds and "shares), mt~el trains, diecasts, hatpins, autographs, antique combs, Kitmaster plastic models, beanies, Guinness ephemera, sports pn~Tammes, and fashion dolls. There are no scientific instruments at present. Another drawback is that there are no images.

Contact Catherine Wright, Customer and Collecting Clubs Manager, CoilectorFair.com Lid, 6-16 Huntsworth Mews, London NWI 6DD. The web address is www.collectorfair.com

Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society. No. 64 (21~KI) 25 Instrument Note Tracking Down A Mysterious Scale Ant6nio Est~icio dos Reis

~-~,,,-~--~ -- ...... ~i~" ,~ ...... :_" .':=~r----~.~ ~.. :~ .-'~

", v~/,~:..~,~'~ '" ~.,'~'~1"~" ~'r ~-t 1~ "%:4.r~.. ~:~'C'L.~ "., :':~,~%" ':...'k~..Y~'-'_:,'.--1.:l-,

. " :" ":. I "" ~:_~i,~."r-~,.::~ "- :'

Fig.l The Tobias Volckmer quadrant in tire British Fig.2 Similar quadrant by Tobias Volckmer in Florence. Mu~um, inv. no. 6-16.5. Published by. kind permission ~. Courtesy of tire istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza. the Trustees of the British Mu~um.

When some vears ago ! was researching tion, describing the individual pieces and made. Figuring in this list is a quadrant the story of Pedro Nunes' nonius, ! came sometimes even their engravings. It was made in Brunswick in 1609 with exactly across an article written by Rudolfo published in Paris in 1892 under the title the same dimensions as the one we are Guimar,%s about the B~,~k of Vernier, of La Collection Spttzxr. in the chapter looking for, and that Zinner tells us is in published m the Boletim Biblitigrdfico da entitled 'instruments de mathematiques', London in the British Museum (inv. no. 6- UniPersutade de Coimbra, dated lC)17, in is illustrated under entry no.174 a 'Quart 16.5). This quadrant was acquired by the which I found an interesting footnote. de cercle astronomique en cuivre grav~', British Mu~um in 1893, the year of the According to it 'Colonel Laussedat says inserted in a frame 153 mm wide. auction in Paris of the Spitzer Collection. in his 'Recherches sur ies instruments, fes A photograph of this quadrant (Fig. 1) mdth,~es el le dessin topographiques', The following year the collection was put was kindly supplied on request. After a published in the Annales du Consen~toire careful examination l realized that Laus- dt~ Arts et M~;tiers, the following: up for sale. The auction catalogue was entitled: Catalogue de objet's d'art et haute sedat had unfortunately been mistaken. curiosit6, antiques, du Moyen-age et de la There is, in fact, a sector in the reverse of II e~t extr~mement rare de recontrer le the quadrant with 24 scales, whose arcs nonius sur les anoer~ instruments, c'est Renias~nce, comf,~,~ant l'importante et pre- peme si nous avons pu, dans le grand cieu~ collection Spitzer, dont vente publique are divided successively into parts from l hombre de ceux qui sont passes sur rues aura lieu la Paris, 33 rue de Villelust (Az~'. to 24. On first sight this would appear to .veux. le decouvnr sur un quart de cercle Victor Hugo), Du Lundi 17 APril au Vendret be a nonius scale. However, not only construit en 164w,/m Brunswick, per Tobias 16 [uin 1893 ~ deux heures. The quadrant does the sector cover half the quadrant, Volckmer et qui figura|t dans la coilechon in this catalogue has the same title and but the divisions are unequal in each of Spltzer description as no. 2933, but without any the scales. The quadrant, on the other engraving, as in the Collection, in spite of hand, labels these as SCALA IACIENDI. In the Annales in question Laus,,~:lat also Laussedat's statement. stated the following: There is a similar quadrant made by the Fortunately, in the second and last same Voickmer in the Istituto e Museo di (In peut en voir le dessin dans le catalogue volume of this auctioneer's catalogue to Storia della Scienza in Florence, with the for SpJtzer] de cette collection, aujourd'hui which we have had access, a loose page same scale (Fig. 2). It was described by de,per~ee, .,~us le n" 2933. was inserted with the information on the Mara Miniati and Massimo Rudan in 'll pieces sold and the prices paid at auction. quadrante universale di Tobias Volckmer ~ who was Frederich Spitzer? He was From this we know that the quadrant in di Brunswick (l[)', Annali dell'lstituto ¢ born in Vienna in 1815 and established question was acquired for the sum of Museo di Storia della Scien~ di Firenza, 8 himself in Paris in 1852. He was one of the FF350. Now we only need to know who 0982), fascicolo 1. great collectors of the century with an the buyer was. if it was an individual the interest in art objects of the widest variety, trail would be lost, but if it was a Now to my questions: What was the including jewellery, ivory, textiles, cera- museum or an institution there would purpose of the scala iaciendi, and how mics. enamelling, sculpture, painting, and be a good possibility of finding it. Ernst does this scale work? ai.,,o mathematical instruments, of which Zinner's Deutsche und niederlandisch In- he collected a considerable number. He strumente des 11 - 18 Jahrhunderts (Mu- died in 1890. However, a catalogue of six Author's address: nich, 1972), gives us not only the Biblioteca Central da Marinha thick volumes about his collection, beau- biography of Tobias Volckmer, but a list tifully illustrated, was already in prepara- Praca do lmp&io of the instruments that we know he 1400 Lisbon, Portugal

26 Bulletin of the Scientific instrument Society No. 64 (2000) The scala iaciendi of Tobias Volckmer

Stephen Johnston

Antonio dos Reis has drawn attention to The parts of each arc are not divided of 24 arcs suggests a horary function a puzzling scale on two of Tobias equally, and it is not immediately clear This would indeed be appropriate to Volckmer s quadrants and, discounting whether their division has a geometrical instruments which also feature horary some superficial similarities, has also or a more empirical basis. The overall quadrants and calendrical scales. But distinguished this scala iaciendi from the pattern of divisions does however hint at why should the scala iaciendi be asymme- nonius. some sort of underlying structure. In trically arranged around 18°50'? Perha.,~ particular, it can clearly be seen that the this unusual value is latitude specmc, Without presuming to offer a resolution, mid-point of every arc is aligned: a and the scale is in some way to be used the following descriptive notes may be radius from the centre passes through for setting out dials. useful to anyone wishing to investigate division 1 on arc 2, 2 on arc 4, 3 on 6, 4 on further. 8 and so on. This radius intersects the The other approach from which to tackle quadrant at approximately 18"50'. the scale would be to reconstruct it Both the name and function of the scale mathematically. Working only from are obscure. 'laciendi' is from iacio With this as a clue, the interrelationship photographs rather than a fresh inspec- (rather than iaceo) and the title could be of the other divisions can also be tion of the instruments themselves, it is translated in a variety of ways, from 'the di~erned. As with the mid-points, so not possible to tabulate the relationship scale of throwing' to 'the scale of laying'. other divisions align: division 1 of arc 3 between the scale divisions and their with division 2 of 6, 3 of 9, 4 of 12, etc; corresponding angles with any great The .scale itself consists of a series of 24 accuracy. From visual inspection of the arcs, each covering 45 ° . Each arc is division 2 of arc 5 with 4 of 10, 6 of 15, and so on. These alignments (which are more finely divided arcs it is clear that divided, and the number of divisions not always perfectly executed) indicate from 0 towards 45° the intervals decrease rises incrementally from the innermost slightly towards the mid-point, before arc outwards. The innermost arc has one that all 24 arcs are based on the same fundamental division of the 45 ° arc. increasing again, with the final divisinn division (subdivided to a half), while the Whatever rule or equation generates much larger than the others. Perhaps outermost arc has 24 divisions (with the one arc can also generate all the others. those more adept at numerical analysis half divisions again indicated). The index and curve-fitting can find a suitable arm is divided and numbered from i to What then are the arcs for? And what is function to match this pattern. 24 so that each arc can always be readily the origin of the fundamental division on identified. Although the index arm which they are based? Author ~ address: carries a plumb bob, this may only be Mu~um of tile Histo~ ~. Science for use with the horary quadrants Educated guesswork takes over at this Br(ud Street engraved on this face of the instrument. point. The fact that the scale is made up Oxford OXI 3AZ

The Leicester Automaton Clock

This clock at the Guildhall in Leicester Ls a reconstruction based on remains at All Saint's Church, Hi~hcross Street, Leicester, supplemented by documentary, evidence. The original carved wood quarter-jacks disappeared many years ago, but traditionally dated back to the early 17'h century. In Jacobean costume, they represent heralds. Like its predeces.,~,r, this ch~'k operates every quarter-hour, and chimes the hour on the hour. It was constructed with the aid of National l~,ttery funds, and installed in October 1999 to mark the beginning of the Millennium. it is one of the items in the 'Leicester Time Trail', which includes full-size working replicas of the Karnak clepsydra, a Roman sundial (hemicylium) and various other timekeeping devices. Allan Mills

Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society No. 64 (2000) 27 Elliott Telegraph Instruments in Portugal Elliott Brothers' Trade with Portugal H. R. Bristow

71

L 73 80 19 .. 4" a. L Fig. 1 lllustnltion of ¢,ah'am,neters m the Elliott Gatalo~ue. The speaking Fig. 2 The speakmy, xah~mometer in the ,~ah'an,mu,ter is m the h,ttom h~-hand coruer. The marine ¢,ah,,m,mleter is in the bottom ct'ntre. Photo Ron Brist~m,. lnsituto Superior Tecnico at Lisbon. Photo Dr. Maria Teresa Pera. During the Society's visit to Paris in 1998 laying and Iointing, and regularly there- Speaking Galvanometer a number of instruments b.*' Elliott were after. Testing was made complicated by seen, including a 'speai~ing galvan- the electrical characteristics prlvcluced by This (Fig. 2) is not an electro-acoustic ometer' which is a sensitive galvan- the heavv insulation and armouring of device, but a reflecting galvanometer ometer used as a detector in telegraph submarine cables. Submarine cables had sufficiently sensitive to respond to the systems. Dr Maria Teresa Pera referred to high resistance, capacitance, inductance electrical impulses received in Morse or the existence of similar Eiliott instru- and admittance although the terms and other code via cable from a distant ments in Lisbon and this prompted a their units of measurement were not in transmitter. The message is read by search in exi.,,ting Elliott records for u~, until later and electrical units and visual obsen'ation of the galvanometer ewdence of trade. transmission line thexwv had not yet been deflections using lamp and scale. Ck'er- A preliminary search of the Order B(R~ks developed. For the tt,~ting instruments, land telegraph versior~s were supplied for the late 19th century showed many high sensitivity, high insulation resis- with coils of 400, 600 and 1,000 Ohms, pagt~ of orders for Portugal, in particular tance, and go(~i response time were submarine versions with 2,000 Ohms from the Brazilian Submarine Telegraph required for the tests on insulation, corres]~mding to their greater sensitivity. conductabilih,, and electrostatic capacity. Company Lid which was fi~rmed in 1873. Ganot's Physics describes a speaking The Order I~R~k for that ','ear is missing galvanometer by Elliott 'specially ad- justed flw u~ on ships'. but the subsequent ',ears'show substan- Nevertheless these instruments had to tial orders for equ,pment to be delivered operate under rigorous conditions quite Marine Galvanometer to Lisbon, Madeira. St Vincent in Cape unlike those of a lal~watorv and special Verde, and I'ernambuco. This was a versions of them were developed. Ganot also describes Thomson's marine pt, ri~,.| ot b~reat activity in submarine galvanometer by Elliott in some detail. A telegraphy which was reflected in new heavy ,soft iron cylinder provides mag- and fi~llow-on busine-,,.; for Elliotts. Items supplied by Eiliotts to Portugal netic screening, a very powerful magnet includtxt a full range of electrical labora- and a coil of many thousands of turns of .'~,me ot the ,nstruments ordered were of to~" instruments, Wheatstone bridges, fine wire give high sensitivity and low laboratory quahtv rather than standard resistances, Leclanch6 cells, and several electrical loading. The moving magnet is teh'~raph equipment, submarine telegra- typt~ of instrument particularly relevant a small piece of watch-spring of negli- phy being, much more difficult to imple- to submarine telegraphy gible moment of inertia and thus un- ment than overland systems in electrical affected by pitch and roll. The catalogue and m physical terms 1he d,tfi'rence is Catalogues offe~ coil resistanc~ of 7,0(X), 20,0(10 or illustrated by the working speed of 4 - 8 30,(XX) Ohms. words per minute for ',ubmarine tele- graphy compared with up to 4iX) words From about 1873 Elliott catalogues show Siphon Recorder per minute for overland tt'legraphy. an extensive range of galvanometers Siphon recorders, which produce a including versions for use with submar- printed record of messagL,s received, In use, the enormous cable lengths ine telegraph systems. Many are of the mexflablv cau.,ed heavv attenuation of appear in the order I~n~k flw 1886 for form, or variants, of Thomson's d¢~ign, the Brazilian Submarine Telegraph Com- the sign,if, ~ that very ~'nsitive roceiv- but the D'Arsonval movement also ing apparatu., was rtxluired; a reflecting pany Ltd (Fig. 3). This was another of appears in the later catalogues. The Lord Kelvin's inventions and in it a ~alx anometer provided this ]he costs of l~q~ catalogue lists 155 types of galvan- repa,rmg and rt,placing submarine cables suspended-coil type of movement causes ometer (Fig. l) and the illustrations show a capillary pen to contact a moving strip meant that rigorous tests must be carritxt some of th,~e which were earlier ordered out during their nlanutacture, during for i'ortugal. of paper. Contact with the paper is interrupted by a vibratory mechanism,

2~ Bullehn of the bk'ientific Instrument~ciety No. 04 (20f10) | I _ =.... .=

!,

!., ,

Fig. 3 Order .fi,r siph,,n recorder from the Brazilian Submarine Fig. 4 Cable samples of the Brazilian Submarine Telegraph Company Compan~Ltd. Photo Ron Bristow. Ltd. Photo Ron Bristou,.

giving a row of dots instead of a figures may not be typical. The Company Electrical and telegraph instruments re- continuous line and thus reducing the held a monopoly for I0 years and in moved from their working situations do friction and achieving the required technical terms the company was also a not properly convey their technical and sensitivity. Several types were made by success; the longest stretch of the cable historical importance. Telegraph instru- Elliott. operated for nine years without a failure- ments are the artifacts of the international Electrometer a record period. The total distance was communications industry which began in 3,866 miles and it was for many years the the ]gth century, equivalent to today's E- In telegraphy the electrometer was used longest submarine telegraph system in mail and internet. ]'hey can be seen in as a voltmeter and as a test instrument the world. proper context, as can something of their for the capacitance of the cables; a change importance, in the excellent Communica- in capacitance over a period of time The geography of Portugal made it an tions Museum in Lisbon to which some would indicate a probable fault develop important routing post for other cable of the delegates of the SIS Portugal visit ing. The order book entry does not show routes. The Brazilian cable was linked by diverted. This Museum was not part of the type of electrometer. There was a the Western and Brazilian Company to the original itinerary. particularly well-made and insulated Rio de Janeiro and other Brazilian cities, example of Kelvin's Quadrant electro- and to Uruguay in 18~1. The Eastern Acknowledgements meter in the 1895 catalogue. Extension Company laid cables from Grateful thanks are due to Dr. Maria Pera Cornwall to Caravellos near Lisbon and In addition there are many orders for of the Insituto Superior Tecnico in Lisbon thence to Gibraltar, Malta, Alexandria, for her enthusiastic pn,vision of much spares, t(~l kits and materials, indicating Aden, Bombay, and eventually to Darwin. that telegraph companies equipped information, and the Directors of GEC themselves to repair and rebuild these Avionics for access to El]iott material. sensitive instruments. The Order Books show that Eiliotts This paper is based on a short talk given supplied equipment to these and many dunng the Society's visit to LL'sbon, May Portugal and Brazil other submarine telegraph companies . 1999. Dr. Pera has also found records in Within the Elliott instrument collection Portugal for Eiliott instruments for land Literature are several display cases of cable samples telegraphy. Sir Charles Bright, a famous Tom Standage, The V.tormn Inh'rm't (London: from the Telegraph Construction and telegraph engineer, referred in 1898 to the Maintenance Company. One in particular Weidenfeld & Nichob~m, 1~) ISBN 0-297- foremost position of Eiliotts, a cla.~sic 841483. contains samples of the various sections company in telegraph instruments. Tele- of the Brazilian Submarine Telegraph graphy was the route by which this Anita McConndl, No Sea T,~ Deep (Brl~,tol: Company Ltd (Fig. 4), the larger dia- company extended its activities into the Adam Hflger. i~82) LqBN 0-8~274-41t,-I meters for the stnmger coastal sections new field of electrical engineering which ~,rnard S. Finn, Submarine ~'h'~raphu. Pu" which must survive ocean currents and eventually replaced traditional instru- shipping activities, the lighter cables for Gnmd Victorian Tectmoh~. (lx~nd~n: .~'lence ment-making. Other companies were Mu~um, 1973) the undisturbed deep water. These cable involved, of course, and instruments by samples were prubably the personal Siemens Brothers and from French in- Auguste [k~nel, Grade Pra,tulue d; rele~,rat,hw souvenirs of Willoughby Smith who strument makers are also to be seen in Sou~-Marme (Pans, 18~1). was the Telegraph construction and Porhlgal. Maintenance Company's Engineer before Chark,'s Bright. Submarine ~'h:~,raph~ (l.ondon, becoming the proprietor of, and a strong 18q8) influence on, EIliott Bros in 1873. Not only electrical instruments were involved. Submanne telegraphy required Brian l~,wers. A ttt~tor~ t~ Ele,'trlc LL~ht & Newspaper cuttings in the Elliott Archive surveys of the ocean beds to be made Pouw (London: Peter Pengnnus Ltd, 1982). suggest that the Brazilian Submarine with far greater accuracy, and detail than Elliott Archives, GEC Avionics Ltd. R,~-he~ter Telegraph Company was very successful. previously, generating new requirements At times the dividend paid was 6% for a for oceanographic instruments, not for Author~ address: quarter - year and the Company's income di,~ussion here but well described by 10 Ad~dt,u,n Ch,~ was £2,900 for a week, although these Anita McConnell. Maldstone, Kent MEI6 8AD

Bulletin of the S¢ienfific Inset Society No. 64 (2000) 29 Study Afternoon on Electroforming in the British Museum: 29'h October 1999 Peter de Clercq °

I I

F;g.l hm Mtlnture z,~t,rkmg on the l,r~h,ctt,,n of tilt" ,'l,'ttr,,t=q,," topu t~ tile St. Andn'w~ Umz~'rsttl/ Cole astn,labe, l~ublished bu kind permission t,¢ tilt" 1-rustees of the British Museum.

Elt~:trotype copies of metal artefacts, ~peclal room with tanks for electroform- including .~entlfic in.~truments, have mg and electroplating, where ian Mcln- been made since the mid-19'~ century, t.vre makes electrot~T,e copies in copper, and they can be extremely deceptive. which he can then plate with gold, sih'er, Fig.2 hm Mclnture taking tit,, C,,h' electro- When vt,u have no access t(~ the ongmal brass and t~-casionallv in tin. In m~lern type.h'om its silicon rubber m,,uld Published and are happy with a Iook-ahke for industrial applications, nickel is preferred kind l,ernlissi,,n of tile Trustet~ ~. tile purp~es of study: or exhtblhon:, that is over copper' but that requirt.,s constant British Museum. hne. But it is di~-oncerting, as it means supervlsum which makes it not viable in we may all lind ourr,elxes confronted the short-staffed Con.sen'ation Depart- ~flh anobltx-t m the market place or even ment. Nigerian sculpture which was used m a museum collection, uncertain extensiveh,, in tribal celebrations, so that whether we art, Ill,king at an authentic In an exhibition catalogue, the technique the original could be spared the wear m.,,trument or at an eloctrot3.-pe copy. (_In has aptly bt~n described as follows. and tear. He has ai.~ made electrocopies Friday 29'" Ck'tober ltegq, flttoen SIS Silicon rubber ° moulds are taken from of archeological metal obg-~cts, to have a mem[~,rs gathered at the Bnhsh Mu.,,eum the original, and the contact surface is three-dimensional record of their to learn more about the fascinating made conductive by rubbing on pow- crumpled appearance before restoration. rel~roduct~on technique called 'electro- dered silver Electrifies are attached and A recent project, that hw)k an enormous |O rmmg or 'electrotyping'. Dr SIIke the mould is plactxl in an electrok-tic amount of time and which was not an Ackermann, curator of scientific in.stru- plating bath from which copper is unqualified succt,,ss, was to make an ments ~Lh'partment of Med~a,,¢al and deposited onto the conductive face of electn,copy of the two-h~)t Humprey l.ater Anhqtut~esl had persuadtxt her the mould When a sufficient thickness of Cole astrolabe, which the British Mu- colleague lan Mclntvre of the Depart- copper has been delm)sittxl ' after ~)me seum borrowed from St. Andrews ment ,,t Conserxat=on to .,,hare his wMe hours, the mould ~ctions art, removecl University in Scotland for the Cole t'xpt'rience with this kx.-hnique with SIS (Figs 1 and 2). Surplus cupper is removed exhibition." Part of the pr(~lem was that mrmbt.r,, Among tho.,e pre, ent were from the section t~tges and they are it only just fitted into the Mu.,~.um's '~'xcral d~.,tmgulshed dealer,,, including backtx:l wah ~,ft ~,lder to give w~,ighl~. electroforming tank; there is a larger the .%~icH,"s (hairman ~tuart lalbot, lhe ~'ctions are then as.~'mbkxl and tank, but to fill that with sulphuric acid ,.~ho ha,, di,.cu,,~l the sublect in this eltx'troplated The areas t,, be left un- and copper for this one j(~ would be B,ll,'tm tour years ago, Arthur Xhddle- gildt~ art, then lacquered and ~'lective prohibitively expensive. It is al.,~ alm(vst ton and ~ol,; and David Colfet.n Wt, gdding applied.: lan .Mcintvw stres~,d ~.~.t'rt' in for an un,.t.ttllng atk'rn~)n. impossible to kt~,p such a large object that in each of tht~, stagt'.,s, im~tential really flat; and it tends to shrink, .,a) that failure is lurking. [he [)epartment of Conservation is the parts no longer fully match. Thus, he even had to bend the ,ilidade .~mewhat hou,.ed in Montague %tret,t, outsMe the [he Museum uses the eltx-troh,rnling m,un mu~.unl budding .";like introduced to prevent it from ~'ratching the fete. technique for many purposes, and lan Mclntvre stres~,d that when you ht,r tollca:4ue lan Mclnt~rt, to us tit' has although the volume of pnwduction is bt'un working tot the BntP, h Museum make such copit..s, the finishtxl obiect low, the facdaies in the Mu~,um art, in must be considered as a decorative ,intt, 1,~e,4, ~x ht.r,, he has de~ eloped into a regular use. One purp,~e is for lnfilling h',~thng mt't,d sptxmlist ~ho~, advice t,n rather than a functional object, in all, of incomplete obiects ' as a repair making this Coh, copy servtxJ as a tcchnlt al matters she value,, enormously. technique. Another is to make master u~ful reminder of the shm, r mastery of lan M~lntxn. gaxe us a slide talk, in copies of Museum oblects , which com- companit.,s like l'lkington, who more which he dl,,¢us,,ed the technique and mercial firms can then u~, to make than a century ago made fine electro- boss ;! is bt, ing used m mu~.um prachce.' ~,uventrs. Yet another u~ is when lan lht' (onst.rvation l)epartnwnt has a copit~ of astrolabes and many other Mclntvre once made an electn~copy of a instruments.

Bulletin of the .~'ient|fic In.',trument ,'~.'tv No. b4 (2(1(10) F Notes and References " I want to thank Sdke Ackermann and lan Mclntyre for their comments on a hrst vt.rs=on of this report.

I. Dlus, for his mveshgahon of the Arsenm,, astrolahe made for l'hdip II of Spa,n, which is in the museum in Madnd, K~a.nraad van Cleeml~el could use the Bntish Mu~,um ek'ctmtype copy, ,n~e of a number of ek'ctm- type copies made m 1876 atter the Special Loan Exhibition in .~uth Kensington It c~mtains all the relevant mformat.m h,r his purp~,ts, even the scratches on the ongmal show in the electn~t-opy.

2. Another 1876 eiectn,type copy of the Madrid Arsenius astrolabe is m the ~'wnce Fig.3 Participants h~kin¢ at the displa~ of on,(mals and wpies. Mu~um, where I recently saw it displayed Published by. kind permissum of the Trustees of the British Mum'urn. high up against the wall in the museum ~mventr and Ix~'~k shop

After this introductory talk, we saw the was not available for loan on this one- 3. ~uart Talh,t, 'Astrolabes and Eh'ctro- electroforming room There are two tank day occasion. But, as we were all on the types: An Enquiry', Bulletin t?f the Scwnt#ic units, and both require great attention watch for copies, some of us did not at Instrument Smu'tv, No. 46 (199~), pp. 18-22. He when used or even approached, becau~ once recognize that here we were in fact describes 18r-,O-1~10 as the golden age of the contents may damage your clothes confronted with the original! There were elec~typing, especially by the Elkmgton firm or even your health. One is for electro- ,several moments when we were gazing which took out many patents in this field h~rming, where the moulds are sus- at an object, even handling it, unsure of pended into the sulphuric acid and what we were kx~king at: very unset- 4. The technique is also widely used in copper ~flution The other contains tling indeed. A case in point was a industry. See Peter Spire, ElectriC,frame A G,raprehensn~" Sun~ t~ Theo~, Practue and cyanide and is used for the follow-up magnificent torc, a Celtic ornament of Commeroal Apphcatu,ns (Teddinghm: Robtn't treatment of electroplating. From the plaited gold strings, of which we were Draper Ltd., 1968. 2"a ed. Iq71). electroforming tank, lan Mclntyre hx~k shown (and to our surprise: even a small but significant pr¢gluct made allowed to handle) both an original 5. In the nineteenth century., gutta p.'Irt-ha especially fnr the occasion. He cut off and an electrocopy. How could we tell was used. For coms, lan Mcln .l.lyr¢uses .sealing the electrifies and wrenched off the the difference? wax for the mould white mould What emerged was the throne of the BM's Descrolieres astro- 6. lan Mclntyre comnm~nts that backing with labe, and exquisite it was indeed. This Of course, in many cases (me can tell more or less confidently Some copies are solder is not usually fi~r weight but for was quite a surprise to at least one strength. participant, Stuart Talbot. When he clearly marked. Thus, copies of metal di~us.~d the Descrolieres electrotype antiques made for the South Kensington Mu~um (later the Victoria and Albert 7. This long quote is taken from the four years ago, he tentatively dated it catak,gue of the special exhibtfi,m Fake? The pre-1893Y That was becau~ in that year Mu~um) often carry trade mark car- Art or Decept,m, edsted by Mark Jones the original was acquired from the touches 'VR. * Department of Science (Lond~m: Bntish Mu~,um, 1~), p. ig2. In Spitzer collection, and the Mu~um and Art * Elkington'. '° Similarly, in one the catalogue, this dt.~-npti~m Ls accompana,cl administration holds no record of it ob~ct l found pres.,,~l the text 'British by a matching ~nt.-s of images, similar to what having been released since then. What Mu~um AUTHORIZED REPRODUC- lan Mclntvn' showed m his shde talk we now found, is that the electrotype TION', but this only left me wondering had m fact been made by none other why this is not being done throughout." 8. (ha the astrolabe (last the copy) see bdke than lan Mclntyre in the 1960s shortly If there is no such explicit evidence either Ackermann (ed.), th~ml,hrev G~le: Mint. M,',I surement and Maps m Eh:abethan En.¢lan,t after he had entered the BM? When he on the ob~ct it~lf, or in the administra- tion related to that object, recognizing (hmdon: Bnash Mu~um (k'castonal Paper saw Talbot's paper, he remembered that Number 126, 1'~8), pp. 3935 he had made it as a private commission, copies will be a matter of experti~. Often and he located the mould It has the weight will tell, or the 'dead' ~und. 9. Talbot (note 3), pp. 20-21. Figs 10-1~ show suffered from storage and cannot be Ai~, one should Ic,~k for telling traces of lead ~lder. Keep your eyes and ears the original and ~veral paris of the eh.~tn~.'pe used to make further copies, although, copy. as we had seen with our own eyes, one open! can still make a copy of the throne. l0 Illustrated m l'albot (t~te 3) as Fig lq We left the Conservation Department After the visit to the dangerous tanLs, with a general feeling of disbelief and 11. The cop,,.'s of la,euwenhot4~ mtcn~-Ol~, we went into an adjoining room where a alarm. How can we be sure? It had been a made in the Mu.seum Iha,rhaave Irom the magnificent range of objects - originals very instructive aftern~a~n, and both Silke 195ib; onwards have always been clearly and electrotype copies - was laid out to Ackermann and lan Mclntvre deserve marked "COPY LEIDEN', thus ensunng that enable us to test our detective skills our thank~ for the effort they put into it. later gencratu~,~ will not be mLsled (Fig. 3). Among the first of the test cases Th¢~e who could not be fitted in this was the Descrolieres astrolabe, with the time, will be pleased to learn that a Auth~r :g ad,tn~s: electotype mould (minus the throne bit) repetition of this study aftemCam is being 13 Gmld,'n Squan" next to it. As we learned, the electrotype considered. I~mdon NWI 9UY

Bulletin of the Scwntific IR~trument S~ety No 64 (2{XX)) 31 Mystery Object

Fig.l Teh~mi'tre Le B,,u- leng¢ ,~. 1874. Fig.2 l'he enttn, mystery obicct, 320 mm Fig.3 Detailof h,th,m arrangement with high. aluminium alh~ wheel.

reveals itself to be a pair of electro- produce a visible flash. Each division on | magnets which were originally sus- the scale (Fig. 1) represen~ 25 metres. pended from a frame by the large hen)k, in the same way as the previous permanent magnets and lodestones. [ According to Ron Bristow's letter, Bou- caught a whiff, but everybody was too lengt~ aim invented a chronograph for polite to make it obvious, that the Editor measunng the speed of artillery and should have known better than to infantry projectiles (see this issue's 'Let- ters' for details). preduce such a bread-and-butter object. It is a staple object found in all the instrument makers' trade catalogues of The following mystery object was pur- physics apparatus. chased by Dr J.R Davis at one of the Scientific Instrument Fairs last year, but neither he nor the seller knew what it "ihanks to Ron Bnstow ! now know that was. The item (Fig. 2) has a maximum another example of the mystery object of height of 320 mm, and it and its wo(x:len issue no. 61 featured in Lssue no. 25 and box has inscribed 'No. 346' on it. He was identified and briefly explained by guesses that it dates from the late 19'h or Deborah Warner of the Smithsonian early 20'h century. I have taken the Institute in the next Bulletin. She gives a description verbatim from Dr Davis' precise reference, Bouleng6's De,,~'ripthm, letter. Ma,iement et Usage des TPh~ntbtres de B,,uh,ng~ (1877). More inh~rmation has The object is constructed of black painted been supplied by Professors Gerard brass, with steel scales and an aluminium Turner and Maurice Dorikens, the latter alloy wheel (Fig. 3). The wheel drives a Fig.4 Detail o[ one o[ the gah's. of the Mu~,um for the History of Science rack and pinion which move the sliding in Ghent, Belgium. The device was scale up and down the fixed scales. These named after its inventor Paul Emile No one has tried to identify the brass Pye fixed scales, labelled (in difficult-to-read Bouleng~. (1832-1th)l ), a I~qgian comman- script) 'Bepm. cuil,ba'and '?bpuz. cubl~', & Co. instrument illustratecl in Fig. 1 in dant of artillery. Invented in 1874, it was the previous issue, but the .,~econd object (Fig. 4) run from 700 to 60 and 4(}0 to 30 for ranging on distant gun flashes. respec'tively from bottom to top. The provoked .,,everal members to contact me, However, as it depended on seeing the among them (k, rard -l-urner and Paolo scales run as reciprocals, with an origin gun's flash and timing by the piston the (or infinity point) just below the top of Brenni. All becomt~ clear when it is sound of the detonation, it would be simply turned upside down, when it the brass base. There L~ provision to useless with powder that did not locate a missing horizontal shaft of

32 Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society. No. 64 (2000) approximately 3 mm diameter through the instrument in v-grooved slots with retaining screws at this origin. At the bottom is a fixing 55 mm in diameter and somewhat similar to a camera lens bayonet fixing. A clamp and sliding arrangement allow the scales to be rotated through about 45 degrees with respect to the base. A scale on this rotation (Fig. 5) is labelled 1 through 3, with 10 subdivisions. The vertical sliding scale is numbered 0 to 4 (cm) with 1 mm divisions. An additoinal inscription on the faxed .scales reads 'Cucm. de Kaioura. Mn. T.T.Y.' The author notes that the spelling of the inscriptions is his best guess. Do you have any ideas? Fig.5 Detailof bottom.fi¢m¢ u,ith scales.

Letters to the Editor Opinions expres~d in this column do not necessarily reflect the z,ie~s of the Editor or the Society

The Pseudo-Tompion Sundial •"-" SUNDIALS _. I 1-he sundial discussed by Peter de Ciercq in the September issue of the SIS Bulletin was made by Pearson Page and is similar to the example shown at the bottom right of this page (Fig. 1) from their 19~ catalogue. The 10-inch dial illustrated in the Bulletin would have cost 75 shillings . '~ ,..... ~. ~,. (£.3.75) with an additional charge of 3 shillings (15p) as it was made for a latitude other than that of the UK. This was a not inconsiderable sum in those IJ/[@ days although far less than the £1000 which an apparently similar dial fetched at auction in Holland.

Peter de Clercq mentions another dial signed 'Bryan', in the Fellow's Garden of Christ College, Cambridge and this name also appears on 'grandfather' clock dials made by Pearson Page. Denys Vaughan

BoulengYs Chronograph

More can be said about Bouleng~. A different publication (from the one men- tioned in this issue's 'Mystery Object') Descriptum et Emploi du Chronograph Ix Boulen¢d, dated 1886 and published in Fig. 1 Sundials in the Pear~n-Page-lewsbury Co Brussels and Paris has E Le Bouleng~, catah~ue of 1936. Colonel d'Artillerie, as its author. It was first published in 1869. This Chrono- A scale provided a direct measurement of mterruptices, Balance de precision, lOK graph was intended for measuring the feet per second corresponding to the Mercury'. Unfortunately there is no speed of artillery and infantry projectiles, distance between the zero and knife illustration or description of it. and for the measurement of very short marls on the tube. It was a precision time intervals. In use as described in a instrument. The ElliottArchive contains a copy of the later English catalogue, the projectilewas instruction book for the Chronograph fired through two screens placed 120 feet Thus we know i~mleng~'s profession Elliotts included the instrument in their apart. Breaking the first scroen causes an and one of his professional interests and 1895 catalogue, together with chrom)-- electromagnet to release a suspended perhaps he will be the source of other graphs designed by Bashforth, EJ. Smith, tube which then falls. The breaking of mystery objects. The list of accessories in Beetz, Carl, and them~Ives. The Tram the second screen controls a second the instructions for the Chronograph Chronograph was described in an earlier electromagnet lower down which then includes "Clepsydra Electrique azcc Dis- Bulletin. marls the falling tube with a knife edge. joncture, Rheotome, Pendule a autres (?) H.R. Bristcne

Bulletin of the Sc~ntific Instrument Society No. 64 (2(100) 33 UNIS..France the Mus/~ des Arts et MHwrs) and any have a firm reference in black-and-white dealer I could lay my hands on, but with to wave at my friends, but this may be ! need m know more about the logo no clear answers. ! thought i was tm a asking too much. 'UNIS-France' which appears on a wide winner when I found an existing ctwn- range of French slide rules and other pany called 'UNIS-France', but they F.G. Wells scientific instruments, usually in what I turned out to make pastry-tins! can best describe as a pointed ellipse formed by two arcs and with pairs of My reasons for thinking that it could be a Profe~mr John Mallard numbers containing !,2 or 3 digits under- trade association are that I have found it neath at each side. on such a wide range of articles in ! was delighted to see the photograph of addition to at least two makes of slide John Mallard 'examining the Mou.,~box' There are two schools of thought among rule ('addiators',sets of drawing instru- (SIS Bulletin,No. 63, p. 27, Fig. 8). John my co-eoilectors. Some believe that it was ments, a stereo slide protector, even a was a student m Physics at the University the name of a versatile maker working medical insufflator) and that on the of Nottingham when ! was on the staff for various designers and firms who then instrlx-tion sheet for one of the slide rules and my wife and ! recall with pleasure sold them under their own brand names. with the logo there is the explicit his helpfulness towards our young My own view m that it is more likely to statement 'Fabriqu~ par Carbonnel et family. Jt~n was a student of Bob Street, be an indicatitm of membership of a trade L~endre'. who later came to AuLstralia to start the association, say 'Union Nationale d'ln- Lk'partment of Physics at Monash Uni- strumenteurs Scientifiques'. I have put Any help you can give me in clearing versity and ! joined him. the question to a number of French or matters up would be extremely welcome. French-based experts (Anthony Turner, Ideally, of course, it would be nice to Professor H.C. Bolton

The Delbee-Jansen Collection, Christie's Sale, Monte Carlo 10~-11" December 1999

A vast auction of 0bierd'art was held at the Metropole Palace Hotel, Monte Carlo, which attracted the attention of several well- known international scientificinstrument dealers and collectors from around the world.

Of course the rare 18~' century standing mechanical universal equinoctial silvered and lacquered ring dial signed by John Rowley, was the inevitable scientific star of the sale and commanded heavy bidding. The hammer eventually fell at £190,000 (double the upper estimate) to a telephone bidder. It is now commonplace to see a battery of telephones at any sale but this was a veritable regiment of more than 25! This is the second fine standing ring dial to be offered recently; the Richard Glynn being in New York.

Gk~es were well represented, an lg-inch library pair of J. & W. Cary (1816) on pillarand tripod stands realizing£35,000 and a 9-inch pair of Bardin table glc~s (1783) realizing £9000. A miniature armillary sphere by Delamarche 9 inches high reached £,3(X)O

An Indo-Persian 5-unch decorative astrolabe estimated at £500 made a surprising £15,000. There was a magnificent [ate 16'h century ~uare table clock (posslblv Augsburg) that reached £17,000 and three other equmt~'tial ring dials all at 9.5 cm ranging from £2000-£54X}0.

The remaining scientificlots comprised mainly of a 19~ century compendium, hourglasses and 17~ century classic diptych dials, one by Hans Troschel which reached £3~}0. Nearly all of the scientificlots doubled their estimates or were well above them, leaving me wondering whether someone had done rather well at the casino nearby! (It wasn't me in case anyone wonders!)

lan Burnham

The Cyber Museum of Neurosurgery This is a wry specialized site that includes the development of ~me medical instrumentation, in particular those relating to Sterts~tactic Neurosurgery, Surgical Micrt~copes (Microneurt~surgery), and Aneurysm clips. The illustrations are small and not ve~' clear.

l_)t~criptionsof non-medical instruments can be found m the Special Exhibit, Journal of a Seaplane Crui~ Around the World. lht.,~edt.~scriptions include aviation/navigatmn/communication instrumentation used during the 1930s. Of intert~tto thc~, interested in medical instruments could be theiroral history video series,Ixaders in Neuroscience.Inventors and collaborato~ provide per.~ma] dt.,scriptionsof instrument development such as H. Thomas Ballanhne (ultrasound), John Holier (shunts), John H. Lawrence (nuclear medicine), Urban Ponten (mterventiona] radiology), James Watts (psychosurgery), and many others.

For details contact Chris Ann Philips, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons Archives Ctmrdinator, and see the site at www.neurosurgery.org/cybermuseum/summary.html

34 Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument S~L~y No. 64 (2000) Market Place The Time Museum Sale, New York, December 2, 1999 Trevor Waterman

Historical Information. grasp just how overwhelming the collec- incorporated into the cradle at the top tion was. Most of us on that visit of the clock, a mechanism designed to Many SIS members will remember the walked around with our mouths wide wonderful visit to Chicago in 1984. Dr wind, and set overnight, a specially open, for it is one matter for a large city made pocket watch. Produced in Jim McCormick made all the arrange- to finance a museum, but quite another ments and the itinerary was very full.Jim 1835, it is the most sophisticated of to find such a fine collection inprivate the Sympathiques as the action is made sure that we had an opportunity to hands. Of all the instruments and clocks see the important instrument collections that we saw, none was to leave a more completely automatic. Not only a in Chicago, which included his own fine lasting impression than the Glynne record price for a Breguet clock, but collection of microscopes. We also visited standing Ring Dial (Lot 6). The general the highest price ever for any clock The Adler Planetarium, The Museum of consensus was that the instrument sold at auction. Science and Technology, and The Time would have been even more spectacular Museum. had it been in original condition. ! am A Gilt Brass Mounted Red TortoL~- Shell Grand Sonnerie and quarter The Time Museum, Rockfonl, Illinois, sure that even as it was we would all have loved to own it! repeating table clock by Thomas USA Tompion circa 1705 (Lot 81 estimate The Museum was situated at the Clock The Sale Catalosu¢ $500/700,000) sold for $2,092,500, Tower Inn at Rockford, Illinois, and was Sotheby's are to be congratulated for almost 3 times more than the high formally opened to the public in 1970. their excellent catalogue. The quality of estimate. The brainchild of Seth Atwood, the the design and printing is in my view of Museum became a Mecca for collectors, the highest order, it is hard-backed with A Richard Glynne Brass and Silvered museum curators, and dealers, as well as full coiour slipcover, and page after page Brass Mechanical Equinoctial Ring the general public. What Seth Atwood of beautifully shot sharp photograpl~s, Dial (Lot 6 estimate $300/500,000) was able to do would be almost im- with each object shown from every sold for $1,047,500, double the high possible today. His enthusiasm was angle. The use of line drawings, photo- estimate. Sotheby's comment that this contagious, this galvanized many coUec- graphs of paintings, prints of the period, was a world record price for a tors and dealers to try to find the very the diagrams and explanations of the scientific instrument is not quite best horological examples, and offer accurate. The 18th century French them to the Museum. Seth came to know complicated clock and watch move- ments, with notes on makers and their Duc de Chaulnes Microscope auc- all the best dealers and worked very workshops, give the catalogue added honed at the Christie's Rothschild closely with them. He in turn found weight. sale sold for £991,500, almost 5(P,. wonderful clocks, watches, and instru- more, ments, sometimes at very high prices. Sotheby's called on William Andrewes, However, this was in the early seventies Alan Barnaby, Emmanuel Breguet, Owen and the right time to start a collection, Gingerich, Justice Warren Shepro and ! was not able to attend the sale, but I did since many of the .[~ieces greatly in- Anthony Turner to write essays and the view all the instruments in New York a creased in value as me economy grew catalogue entries. The production team few days before. I understand from Will and interest in the subject flourished. clearly made up their minds that this Andrewes that the sale took place in an Often one man's influence will excite a catalogue was a publication that every atmosphere of high drama. 1he saleroom whole new generation of collectors. Seth collector, museum curator and dealer was packed, and the usual bank of Atwo(~ is such a man who shared his would want to keep and refer to in the telephones had eager bidders taking part. new found knowledge, encouraged future. These occasions are great theatre, and others to look at the subject, funded almost the ultimate extreme of participa- many pro~cts, and is a most ~enerous There were six lots of instruments and 75 tion. All those who were at the Rothm gentleman. ]hose who think that it is lots of watches and clocks; however, Lot child sale, know what this is all about. only about money and being able to fund 65 could better be included with the The applause that follows a successful a collection are very far off the mark. The instruments listed further on in the text. bid is na~t just because of the money, but a collecting bug may start that way, but it sort of release from the high tension of s(nm becomes a passion, a way of life, The presale high estimate was $13.7 two or more bidders battling it out, and and then and only then, can someone like million; the final total for the 81 lots, one prevailing, i always feel like the man Seth Atwood make such an important which all sold, was a fantastic who sees his mother-in-law dnvin 8 over contribution. $28,285,050. All prices released (.seelist) the cliff in his new Rolls Royce. On the include Sotheby's buyer's commission. In his foreword to 'An Introduction', an one hand, not to be able to afford these illustrated guide to the Time Museum, Sotheby's Post Sale Press Release High- wonderful ob~'ts, and on the other, Seth Atwtx~d writes: 'This collection has lights a Number of Spectacular Results knowing that one's own collection is the been established with the clear objective more valuable! • of illustratm~ the history of time mea- The Henry Graves Patek Philippe surement. Often, patience is required to Watch becomes the most expensive The sale was divided iato 9 sections: find a piece of museum quality to fill a time piece ever sold at auction at gap in its history. Clearlyseth Atwood is $11,000,000 (Lot 7). For the estimate 01-06 Scientific Instruments. 07 The Henry Graves a man of abundant patience. By 1981 the one was referred to the department, Museum contained over 3000 items. The but $6,000,000 was considered to be Supercomplication 08-17 Chronometers and Coach collection covered all aspects of time more than possible. Watches keeping: sundials, astrolabes, mechanical • An Ormolu-mounted Red Boulle 18-22 Abraham-LouL,~ Breguet clocks, watches, water clocks, sand- Sympathique quarter striking Table 23-44 Enamel and Early Watches glasses, calendars, chronometers and Ck~ck (Lot 22 estimate $I,500,000), 45-53 Early Clocks navigational instruments. sold for $5,777,~}0, more than three 54-57 Japanese and Austrian Clocks It wild be very hard for those who were times the high estimate. The clock, 58-71 French Clocks not able to visit the Time Museum to made by the house of Breguet, has 72-81 English Clocks

Bulletin ot the Scientific Instrument S(~.ty No. 64 (2~1)) 35 full catah~ue dv,. pt,bh-hvd l~S -3 tlm'e plate,, tor l,mtude-, ?,~", 42", 4~", L 4S", gl" and 5,4". lot 3 t;eor< tlartman a bra.. plani- -pher~c a.trolabe, Nurvmberv,, d,ltl,d /';;,",';l" "~,.l*,i~('~.~¢" t I~ *:O'd~.;rl/ -~tu't' q'.~IPH ~1" 1"3~2 [)hlnlt,tt,r -3" 111> ~va', a tlnL" early Its' -cl'ntllrV a,tn~- 7::,'i',- .'.;t,' X't lit;: ,'.z,.'z/XIXt~: l~tm,~,tt/ ,, t:-tunate ~l-~O 2-30.(~,10 .%dd SI~4,1RR) labe tlmatc L/no I~. left t~ ~,~,qldt,r ~.~11~,~ hi .I practlc.ll treatl,.eon the ton,,trtlctl¢~no| lot !. \n I:~ pthm hme-t~,nv-t~'h,phor- m~ ~ im~ st ha- ,,,,methin~ to ~',itli ",~/t' do ,undlal, a,,trolabe,,, completed ~tl- -t,ltllt'ttt' or tllnt'r,lr\ ,,tont' rv.~lon of ,rod in and the c~,mph'xst~ I arn riot ,,tire that the I'~2S, but not pt,bl,'.hed I hal.e- ],ttt, \\ 11 th-varh \[\th [)~, na-t~, zlekv ~Xa~l' of collech~r,, I,, rcad~ to ~LIV 14,'~i-t~ ~ IR. ~ 17 b', '~ the- tx pe ol oblect ~ et t -tlt!l,llt' ";'It ~ I "~ Itlh ~ ~,,.dd .~] ~2 "~ Lot 4 (Im~,t, mph .%hl..,.h,r, a ~,llt-bra,,,, ]h~.' ill",trllmt'nt,, rt'te re,Irk., the po',ttion compendmm, (;errnarL dated l"g3~, l)i- t',f D,~l'll|~-~('~,t,l*l 11,l111L'dll\t'd -,tar', ]hi' I11l'n~,lt'Hl~, .'~" ['~, "~". :, -" -,,'~d t lu~ ..tdpt,,r,,l.\mun -tar- corrv-D,nd ~th th,~-e h-t~,d b~ t ",tinlate ~ I(X) " ] ~(},tX~). ~l,t ~2~"L~Ofl. tt,~t"!,~: ~ '!~ ;'!- ,! .... ul~t ,,~ ,~-H,,],lb~

,'. ,,t,,:c .t.~tcJ I;~,~ C:zl, }")a 4 i,,: g k ,;,,.t,,!'/: n~;:,../,, ,a ~:it t'p,l-.,,,mt,c.,Imm *,,'tm,m ,I,.,,t I ,,I, (tUIrtl'~ll ~t,t]tCl,ll ,.

'~" Huih.tm ot the ~ u.ntlttc In',trument ~ ii't~ ~.~. r~t (~&l(~1) A very line ~,undial, olr a type llf which l)imen~,,m,,: Ih'ip, ht 12.'~", and 122"~", ~ml~, a few example,, survive the dlamt'ter of ,~phrre,, 4". catahil4uer note~ three other im, trument,, t'~tlm,lte ~llfl/7111l,tlflll. k~ld $1.'34231111 by l'etru,, Al414eritls: a ~,undial at the .~t~, !:i~4. 7 ;~dh,r l'l,metarium; a ,,irnple thei~duhte at the Muwll di Siberia della .%:ien/a, lhi~, pair lif nlinlatl.lre urrerv tlnli'tllt'tt' Fhm'nce; and a redanl4ul,lr equinodial and pianl,hlriunl ilml'pirtt' biuq ma~nl- dial, dated IF%2, at the .%lu,,el,m uf the tkent, lhe ql.lalih ill the worknmn~hlf~ i~ l li,,l~rv ill .~'ience, ()xbrd quite llutstandln~ ()bll~-t~ lit thi~ i) pt, do not always wl~rk ~hrn they ,ire Illlnhl- Lol 6. Richard (;Ivnne; a bra~+ and tl.iri~l.d, [~ui lhe~e were lu~t i~,rfrdllm ,,ilvl,red-bras~, rni,ch,lnical ring dial n-lade br the Earl of llav, l.iindlln, {irr~i 1720 ] have been iniornled by ~lthl,hv'~ thai l)imensiun,,: 23" by 17". all the in~trunlerlt~ %%err, buu~hi by 12~timate S'l(llll-311tl~(lllt). ~ld $1,1)47,5ttl). ['~urllpean clllht'tor~ ,Ind the inqrunleilt~ ~'e Fig. have retllrrltnc!l to Europe

1.%:ll~'n this in~,trument wa~, sdd at Personal Reactions (hri,,tie'~, in [.ondun in ]~flq, and later ',rid by Arthur l)avid,,~m tl~ ,~.th At- fhe MarKet I'lace cdumn, i~, per,-,4,nal w'~d, tDre were ~en,' h,w collector~, ~r cumment ~n what is happening in tht, dl,ah.r,~ in the w~lrld'who wmlld have cummercial instrument w~+rld. ]hi, pm- ,%l, trld, circa 13011. t'lll+Pt,'sl/ .glltlh'tlll'~; had the 141.1t,~, never mind the hnanchll bh, m thai l face is tryinlz, to underqand dllut, tl~ have houl4ht thi~ wonderful what create,, the sort ill atm~i,,pht, rl, that ln~trurnenl, fhe liml' .~hi~eum thmll4ht was prevalent at the recent Roth,,child A Ih,autiflil i'\amph, of a ctmlpendium a great deal of this instrument. [hex and liml, .%lu,~,um ~,ale,, by line of the 14rt'at nhl~,lt'r'~. 1he pnduced a larl4e p~,ter i~f the (.;k'nn~., liistrunlt,nl cl qilpri~,,,: dial; I ,,till have my c~pv. One dm's n~t neix| to hi' a l~eniti~ tl~ understand that a name will enhance am, I ,'% 14elil4r,Iphical a~,trd,lh,. Lot b~. Antide lanvier, a pair ~f armil- ~,ah' and that 14reat obp~-l,~ cam with larv-form a~,tr(m~mical timepit~:e~, Paris, them that extra chari~,ma lhme~er, thl, rv A circular map ill the [.llw Cminirie~, 17%. i,~ inure than that. [he hul4e ammlnt i~f with the Ihlllle~ ill liver iilO illwiln. I'i~ llled m the lenlre of the map i~ ,in indl'l,-arm nlarked 't |(X" rl-i(, (()(?) .NIV: %'14111' with a ~lidinl4 Cliff,lit to ~'l~ich i~ pi~lltl'd a .~ecund indent arrn uwd t~ a,~-ertain the bearinl4 of one tmvn ti~ anuther. Awund the edl4e, ~f thi' map twelve compa,,', diredions are marked.

t l~¢i/~,nhll ~trlng-14n~lnllln sundial with ill,,ei Clllni'la,,,~ and ti~e-hmir ~ah's hit [ailtude~ 42", 4g", 414", 51", ~4".

A li~t ot latitude~ fur 3 =, tlm'n~ in the ].my {lluntrie~ ~ituated beiwlnt,n ~11" and -~.]".

"~. A ~olar a~pectarium.

~. A rectilirlt,ar llr 'Riiia~,' l'iicarv dia- ra n;.

~thebx"~ n, lte that the in~lrl.inlent is clm~ph;te l~'ith t~ ind-lalle and a cha,.~'d and hdd,n~4 Plummet hokh,r, which are u,,uallv m~,,,in~ trim1 cml~pen,,iia, fhere have been other t'~'hi~,,,ler in~trlllllents ~,dd in the ro:t.nt pasl; however, thin cmnpendium was a very fine e\ample aild intlch illllre COlllrle~ than the one ~lld at the Rlllhschild ~,ah' tin ~ lulv, i.ol ]~1. I~'e {hri~tie'~ catalul4ue).

Lol ,~. I'etrus Ai4t41,rius, a 14ilt-bra~ ~,lar- illrm pd)hedral dial, Spain, pml~ably .%ladrid, llrtii I $/~II. I)hlmeter 3". Figi~ 1 ,,l ~, I(I, i¢,~,.i L,/t,mt,' ,t i',,;-- ,..',i .:.'. , ,,,~ i',.; .... :., .:.¢,: ..i l-~,limate ..'~lllNI,(IIII)..~Id S123,~liO. rm.t' ~tl~ll nmd," I~,~ fit,' t,~rl ot I1,1i/ l~,mt,,, circa 1721J L'o,v/l'-l/ ~'e 1:il4. 5.

Ihzlh,hn ul the ~lentth~" In~,trumen! ~:zetv ,'~) td (2ikk)) ]," advertising, the PR promotion, and taking the objects from one city to another before the sale can account for international interest and bringing in to the salerooms people who have never bought at auction before. m

After the Jacqueline Kennedy Onasis sale, Sotheby's found that 70% of the bidders were first time buyers and had never before bought anything at auction. I am still not sure what conclusions one can draw form this. True, there are huge amounts of money at the moment particularly in the USA. This is new money but once you have made it what do you do with it? Spend it!

There are, of course, many historical parallels. The Grand Tour laid the foundations of some of the most im- rtant English private collections, that r were the source of many of our national mu~ums. The Victorian ship owners and industrialists, having made vast fortunes, built libraries or art galleries. The William Brown library and the Walker art gallery in Liverpool, and the ]'ate Gallery are examples of this.

If one looks up the records of the sale of instruments from the Finlay collection, Fig.7 last65. Antide Janz,ier, a pair ~ armilla~4orm astronomical Sotheby's, 4 December 1961, the same timepieces, Paris, 1796. Courtesy Sotheby's. names keep on repeating then~seives. In those days the salerooms printed not only the hammer price but also the name The following lots were sold at the prices stated. Prices include the buyer premium. of the buyer. Most of the names are those of dealers. I am sure that were a list available today, many of the names LOT US$ LOT US$ LOT US$ LOT US$ would be private or corporate buyers.

0001 31,625 0022 5,777,500 OO43 46,00O 0064 43,125 In the Finlay sale the most expensive lot 00O2 222,500 0023 23,000 OO44 332,5OO OO65 1,542,500 was bought by the Museum of the t~3 1~,500 0024 40,250 0045 29,900 0066 206,000 History of Science in Oxford. They paid £3,600 for Lot 13, the only spherical 0004 299,~ OO25 12,650 (~q6 68,500 0067 9@000 astrolabe known to survive. However, 00O5 11~,500 0026 48,875 0047 27,6OO 0068 24,150 most of the objects sold for less than £100. OO06 1,047,500 0027 68,500 0048 96,000 0069 28,750 In 1966 1 bought my first home. The cost for a four-bedroom house was £3,500. A tXX)7 11,002,500 0028 178,500 OO49 18,400 0070 27,600 few years later we sold the house for t)tX)8 4,887 0029 54,625 0050 79,500 0071 79,500 £3,800, and thought we had done very tXX)9 25,3OO 00?,O 60,250 0051 37,375 0072 57,500 well. But the profit of £,300 was about the cost of some of the better instruments in 0010 18,400 0031 772,500 OO52 442,5OO 0073 28,750 the Finlay collection. So that in real terms 00 11 4,887 0032 74,000 0053 497,5OO 0074 74,000 forty years ago, £300 was a lot of money. tX)12 6,900 0O33 96,000 0O54 6,325 Today to some it still is, but in real terms 0075 151,000 not much has changed, except that now tX)13 16,100 00M 74,000 0055 6,325 0076 9,775 there are far more people out there who tX)14 32,2OO 0035 134,500 0056 19,550 0077 37,375 have disposable incomes. I am delighted that some of them are now buying these tX) l 5 1 .'36,_~~0 00~ 79,500 OO57 21,850 0078 82,250 wonderful objects, it can only benefit all 0016 1Z3,500 0037 74,000 OO58 156,5O0 0079 51,750 of us. Maybe one of the new collectors 00) 7 14,950 00"~ 29,900 OO59 31,050 0080 145,500 will build an important collection, and continue in Seth Atwood's footsteps. t~)18 48,875 0039 37,375 0060 31,050 0081 2,O92,50O tRU9 25,~)0 (~giO 26,450 0061 12,6~ 156,500 0(141 19,550 O062 12,650 Author's address: Trevor Philip & Sons ~M)21 151,000 t~12 14,950 0063 189,50O 75A Jermyn Street St lames 's lamdon SW1Y 6NP

38 Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument S(~ety No. 64 (2000) Current and Future Events

Until 24 September 2000, Greonwkh, S July 2000, London, England optional tours on Monday, 16 October, which London, England SIS Tkarn~ Boat Trip Departs hx~m Swan Pier, will include nearby Meteor Crater, and The Story. ~Time exhibitkm in the 17" century Blackfrmrs, at 6.30 pro, return 10.30 pro. Finger possibly abo one of the outstanding amateur Queen's House, part of the National Maritime buffet, pay bar, specialist commentary. Cost observatories in the Flagstaff area. (Note also Museum. Around 300 obiects are brought £35, Payment not later than ,30 March. Ctmiact that the Grand Canyon is an umportant local togetherto presentan all-encompassinghistory the SIS Executive Officer. See flyer in this attraction.) Preliminary information is avail- of time across the earth from the earliest Bulletin. able from the k~cal organwx=r,John W Bnggs, civilisations. President, A'[S, Apache Point Observatory, 4-# Septeml~r 2000, Oxford, England Sunspot, NM 88349-0059, USA. E-maih 16 April 2000, London, England XIX Scu'ntific Instrument Symposium organized [email protected] Tel.: 505 437 6822; fax: 505 434 5555. The 28~ Scwnt~c & Medical Instrunumt Fair will by the Scientific Instrument Commismon of the be held at the Radisson SAS Portman Hotel, International Union of the History and 22 October 2000, London, England Philosophy of Science, is held at the Museum Portman Square, London Wl, from 10:00 to The 29~ Scientific & Medical Instrument Fair will of the History of Science and Wadham College 16:00 hours. Nearest Underground station is be held at the Radisson SAS Portman Hotel, Oxford. Marble Arch. Organize. Peter Delehar, 146 at Consult the website at Portman Square, London W1. Details as Portobel]o Road, London Wll 2DZ, UK. www.sic.iuhps.org for details and all SIC above. Telephone/fax: +44 181 866 8659, mobile: Sympom. 0403 788 507. 30 November 21}00, SiS Invitation 23 September 2000, Bury St Edmunds, Lecture, London, England Internet: www. peterdeleha r.co.uk England 8e' Annual Invitation Lecture by AD Baynes- 9-14 May 2000, SIS Conference, Como, Milan SIS Museum Visit. Joint Meeting with the Coates (formerly of the British Museum) on A and Pavia, Italy Antiquarian Horological Society. at 0w at the Discourse on Scwnt~ic Instruments by. a Practis- Bury St Edmunds Museum in Suffolk, starting ing Scwnlist at The Linnean'Soc~4y, Burlington A very comprehensive visit has been arranged. at 11.30 am. Talk by Viscount Middleton. Contact the Society's Executive Officer, Wg House, Piccadilly, Lor~on W1. Cdr Geoffrey Bennett,for latestdetails and the 13-15 October 21}00, FlaM4aff, Arizona, USA 8-14 July 2001, Mexico City, Mexico Conference Booking Form. E-mail: [email protected] The Annual Meeting of the Antique Telescope XX Sc.wnt9% Instrument Symposium to be held demon.co.uk Society will convene this year at historic within the International Con~'ess of the 14 June ~000, AGM, London, England Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, I-Sstory of Scm~-e. beginning with a reception in the Lowell Summer 2002, Athens, Greece The Sodety's Annual General Meeting at the rotunda on Mars Hill, Friday evening, 13 Suciety of Antiquaries, Burlington House, October. Paper sessions will run on Mars Hill, XXI Scwnt~c Instrument Symposmm to be held Piccadilly,London, WI. Speakers include llaria Saturday and Sunday, uncludmg tours of local within the International Congress of the Meliconi (Oxford): From the Workshop to the telescopes. The banquet will be Saturday, 14 History of Science. Factory: 1862-19¢)0, and Chnstopher Haley October, and the meeting will end offioallyon Details affuture events, meetings, exhdnttons, etc. (Caml~ridge): Models of the VictorianAether. Sunday afternoon. Very likely there will be should be sent to the Edrtor. Classified

Scientific Instrument Society Summary of Advertising Services For further reformation contact the Society's Executive Officer (details on inside cover). Lithoflow Ltd act as agents for all advertisements but any services taken up will be treated as a contract with the Society. Page rates for camera ready artwork supplied: Whole page £210 Half page £II0 Quarter page f,60 Eighth Page £42 Other:. Additional artwork At cost Classified 25p per word (minimum charge £5) Use of box number £1.50 (apply to SIS Executive Officer) Flyer supplied by customer £15 Flyer supplied as camera ready copy Single side £120 Two sides £150 65 l~rtobello R~'~id LAm&m WI I Special mailshots - as for flyers plus postage and handling charge Tel/Fax: 00-44-(0120-8969 7011 There are no direct PL~luctions for placing advertisements m more than one issue but page rates will qualify for a 10% rebate on each set of 4 consecutive identical advertLsements. -~j_..;",. ;~,, ~ 1"> .,.,~,.,,-~ . ~ ~ ~ "~:-" Final copy must be with Lithoflow Ltd no later than 4 weeks before publication of the Bulletin, "one*. /e end January, April, July, ~. All detailed arrangements to be made direct with Lithoflow Ltd. Payment Invoices will be issued by the Society unmediately afterpublication of an issueof the Bulletin. Terms 30 days afterdate of invoke. The Society is not registeredfor VAT.

Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument ,Society No. 64 (2000) 39 Rogers Turner Books 2~a Nelson Road, London SE 10 24 Rue du Bui~mn Richard, 78600 Le M~)nil-le-Roi, France Tel & fax 00 44 181 853 5271 T(H 00 33 1 39 12 11 91 : Fax 00 33 1 39 62 07 22 email [email protected] TRADE CATALOGUES Ev^.uss,,.~..Ts C.. TESTUT I~ $,'--"--'"-- Rim P.#.c.mtrl~ PARI~ i/l') ~-~_I i~ IHSTIUIIEIT$IUTOIIITIOUE$ ~,~ li~

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Are You Missing Something? 9rh Semi.Annual like a back issue of the Bulletin• ANI'IQUF., SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENT FAIR The Society has now published over 50 Sot~cmst'r, NEw JERSEYU.S.A. Bulletins, each packed with information 10 M:x-~"ts ~ ~,a .qt, w Btramma.x about scientific instruments and happenings ~ Duuble Tree Hind, ~.Atmn ~ (?J21¢¢~-~ within the Society since its founding in Suud~, March/,6, ~COe 9:30a.m,-3~0 p,m. g~lk 1983. The complete set make an invaluable Reference Library. BL'T. SELL. TRADE Many of these Bulletins are still available at a AN/X~'E e USER• S~a~. • Mnlm/• Elt,~al • ~ • cost of £6.00 each plus postage. • M~mcop~d • Ho~cd • Weadwr• Asmmom~d ', Mec~u~d •

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~ ~ ~ As~,gm-lm.~ Ammmm. Na m~m~,~ ~ mmmlm .-.--.h- m4mmma~ ~R~, Next ~ Fail 2000 t fable of Contents

j,,orud ...... 1 " .,~,.', S~ry ...... Sam Schedmer 2

, ,¢ ~nqmt Iml~on lm'ture r~ Astrold~ and the hna~ma~on ...... John North $ Cah.ndar Systems and Perpetual C,alendars Part 3: ~ of Calendam ...... Mike Cowham 7 Early Prmk.d Ephemera of l,end(m Immanent Makers'. Trade Catalogues Part I: Joseph Moxon, 1673 ...... D. J. Bryd~ 13 Raoul tleilbrtmm,r and Early Mathematical Immanenta ...... A.J. Tume¢ 17 The Trip to Rusma - A i~ om the lg~ ~ ~ Sym~uum ...... Peter de Clercq 20

Instrument Note Tracking Down A Mys~mow Scale ...... Anl~mio EJldo ck~ l~is 26 The ~.~ ~ of Tobias Voklum~r ...... ~ ~ 27 E]~ott Tek~q~h lmmm~mta m Portugal - ~ Brothers' Trade with Port~M ...... H R. Bri~low 28 Study. ~ on F_.~,ctm~mm~ m the Bntmh Museum. 29~ October 1999 ...... Peter de Ck,mq 30 l.ette~ to the Editor ...... 33 Market Place - The Tune Museum Sale, New York, December Z 1999 ...... Trevoe Wa~rnum 35 Current and Fu~me Events ...... 39 Advertmements ...... 39

The Scientific Instrument Society Membership The Scient~c h~stmmmt Society, (SLS) was formed m April 19e3 to brm~ mSether people with. ~ immat in mmUfic mstnmnents, rangjng fn~n precious antiques to electronic devices only recently out of production. Collectors, the anuqu~ trade, museum staff, ~ historians and other enthmia~ will lind the varied activities of SIS to their umes. The Soci~. hasan mternatioml amnbmhip. Activities Regular evening nwetmgs are held in ~ am well as occamonal row-day and week-end ~ in attractive provincial ~. ~, :.~'ons. Speakers are usually expet~ in their field, but all membe~ are welcome to give talks. Special "behind-the..Ken~ ° ~ to ", '.,~.,.u'~ are a useful feature. Above all,the Society'sgatherings are eaF)yable social oocasmm, providing oppmCani~s to e.-. , ah samdar interests. c,.- SIS Bulletin • ,~ :he S~-tety's )oumal, published four times a year and sent time to members. It is attractively produced and illus~led, , -. ~,, ,:.~ mv.~rmatwe articles about a wide range of instruments as well as book and exhibiticm reviews, news 06 SIS activities, and • :~:.r:~ of related societies.There is a lively letterspage, and 'mystery ok~ects' are presented. Another fNture is a clammfied .,~ "e.t/x~nent column, and antique dealers and attction houses regularly take advertising space, to that coflects~ may find the •~': .;e',n a means of adding to their collections. How to join

The aqnual subscriptme is due on 1 January. New ~ receive back copies oC the Bulletin for the year m wJfa:h they ~oi~. Sub~riptio. rates ges,dent m UK Individual £35 (Student £17) F;m~y £40

Restdent ebewhe~ Individual fA0 (Student £20) $64 (Student $32) Family $73 Please note that higher cost of overseas ~p is due to additional ~ ram.

Please contach The Executive Officer (Wg Cdr ~ Bennett)