Hydrostatics, Specific Gravity

Unnumbered manuscript notes and letters, with tables and sketches on water moving as a mass, the construction of hydraulic machinery, salts and specific gravity, and the stability of ships, and a printed volume of James Brown's 1785 booklet on "Directions for Proving Any Kind of Spirits, or Strong Waters, by Glass Bubbles". Interesting illustrations include a cutaway drawing of a piston, ca. page 11; cutaway of an oil lamp, ca. page 50; conjectural drawing of a pedestrian wheel for fording rivers, circa page 65; lovely sketch of a hydrometer, circa page 85; lovely frontispiece portrait and fold-out chart from Brown's miniature book on determining alcohol proof by specific gravity, inserted in middle of larger volume; beautiful cherub's face on rear of note-perhaps a pun-on the distillation of spirits, nearly exactly at book's centre.

Duncan Fisher 08 May 2002