Lot 808: FOSTER, SAMUEL.

Miscellanea... Miscellanies: or, mathematical lucubrations... Published, and many of them translated into English, by... John Twysden, [etc.]. London: R. & W. Leybourn, 1659

Condition Note:

folio (320 x 195mm.), ff. [8], 27, [1]pp.; 8pp. plus engraved plate; 4pp.; 48pp., plus 23 plates between pp. 24 & 25; 8pp.; 23pp., plus folding engraved plate bound at end; 36pp. plus 2 engraved plates at pp. 18 and 36; 8pp.; 4pp.; 17, [1]pp., plus engraved plate at end; 26pp.; 40pp., plus 2 engraved plates at pp. 22 and 32; 16pp.; ff. [14] A-G2 paginated 1-10, 2-6 [1] 1-10, with an engraved plate at p. 5; 7, [3]pp., errata leaf at end, binding : contemporary panelled calf gilt, the covers inlaid with a lozenge of lighter calf, flat spine gilt, slightly rubbed

Wing F1634

This volume, which contains some twenty items in both Latin and English, some in bilingual versions, either printed in parallel columns or on facing pages, includes John Greaves's publication Lemmata Archimedis... e vetutso codice m.s. arabico... traducta; et nunc primum cum Arabum scholiis publicata, edited by Samuel Foster (see Toomer, p.139 note 51). There is also Twysden's own The whole art of reflex dialling.

At the end of the table of contents is an advertisement for the "mathematical instruments described in this book... made, either in wood or brass by Anthony Thompson...", who engraved the plates (see lot 805).

Also enclosed is a two-page manuscript note headed "To compute the geocentric appearance of the five satellits of Saturn" with 3 diagrams and a table with the date 1736.