Science, Medicine and Technology

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Two Typed Letters Signed ('Leslie Urquhart'), and one Typed Letter Signed by a secretary, all three addressed to Secretaries of the Royal Society of Arts, London.

Author: 
John Leslie Urquhart (1874-1933), Scottish mining engineer and entrepreneur in Czarist Russia and at Mount Isa in Australia [Russo-Asiatic Consolidated]
Publication details: 
Urquhart's two letters: 9 and 28 November 1917; his secretary's letter: 22 June 1917. All three on letterhead of 7 Gracechurch Street, London EC.
£56.00

All three items 4to, 1 p. All three good, on lightly aged paper. The first and last bearing the stamp of The Royal Society of Arts. Letter One (addressed to H. T. Wood by Menzie's secretary '): 22 June 1917. Wood's letter will be 'placed before' Urquhart on his return from Russia, where he is at the time of writing. Letter Two (addressed to G. K. Menzies by Urquhart): 9 November 1917. He will be pleased to attend the meeting at which he will 'receive the medal awarded me by the Society for my paper on Russia read in November last'.

The Institution of Junior Engineers. Founded 1884. [...] Presidential Address delivered by Archibald Denny, Esq. M.Inst.N.A. At the Inaugural Meeting of the Fifteenth Session, Held at the Westminster Palace Hotel, London, on [...] 1st November, 1895.

Author: 
Sir Archibald Denny (1860-1936), Scottish shipbuilder who chaired the British enquiry into the sinking of the Titanic [The Institution of Junior Engineers]
Publication details: 
Record of Transactions. Part I. Volume 6. Published by the Institution, 47 Fentiman Road, London, S.W. [1895].
£45.00

8vo: 16 pp. Stapled and unbound, in original blue printed wraps. Good, with light spotting, in stained, spotted wraps. Rust stains from staples. Ownership inscription of H. J. Young, dated November 1895, on front wrap. Advises his audience on 'the education proper for a budding Engineer', 'a lad who intends to tread the higher walks of theh profession'. Moves from apprenticeship to the positions of chief draughtsman and manager, before ending with observations on the 'combination of qualities' required by the 'successful business man'.

Autograph Letter Signed to Dawson [William] Turner (1815-85), philanthropist and educational writer.

Author: 
Sir William Turner (1832-1916), anatomist and Principal of Edinburgh University
Publication details: 
Thursday' [no date]; on letterhead of the University of Edinburgh.
£56.00

Two pages, 12mo. Aged, grubby and creased, with closed tear repaired with archival tape. 'The second plate arrived too late unfortunately for the April number of the Journal as we had to print off at the end of the week.' He is busy with examinations and does not finish till the Monday, but 'would like much to see your work'. Signed 'W Turner'.

Autograph Letter Signed to Sir H[enry]. Trueman Wood, Secretary, Royal Society of Arts.

Author: 
Sir James Lewis Caw
Publication details: 
22 December 1916; on National Gallery [of Scotland], Edinburgh, letterhead.
£23.00

Scottish art critic and engineer (1864-1950). One page, octavo. Very good. Bearing the Society's stamp. 'It is very good of the Council of the Royal Society of Arts to ask me to become a member, but, while thanking them, I regret that I do not see my [^ way,] at present, to join any more societies.' Signed 'James L. Caw'.

Autograph Signature.

Author: 
Robert Edmond Grant
Publication details: 
Without date or place.
£15.00

Scottish comparative anatomist (1793-1874). Dimensions roughly 4 1/2 inches by 1 inch. In good condition, with minor discoloration and three neat fold lines. Possibly taken from letter. Reads 'Robert E. Grant.', with tip of initial 'R' missing.

Autograph Note Signed to unknown correspondent [David Brewster?].

Author: 
Walter Scott.
Publication details: 
No place or date (trimmed away), [1820?]
£300.00

Page trimmed of peripherals, c. 4 x 3", removed from an album, text as folllows: "Dear Sir // I fancy the Society should pay the [inclosed ??] in the first instance & recover from the gentlemen who a: [new line] vail [avail?] themselves of the tickets which I sent to you. / We will hear of our Address today Yours truly / W Scott [underlined]" David Brewster, scientist (DNB) had a hand in the growth of the collection of autographs in which this appeared.

Autograph Letter Signed to Pryor's mother.

Author: 
John Hopkinson (1844-1919), English geologist [Alfred Reginald Pryor (1839-1881); Royal Geological Society]
Publication details: 
5 March 1888; St Albans, Hertfordshire.
£56.00

12mo: 3 pp. Good, on lightly-aged paper. Concerns Pryor's posthumous 'Flora of Hertfordshire' (1887), which contained an introduction co-written by Hopkinson. Four copies of the book are being presented to Mrs Pryor 'by our Society'. 'This is partly the cause of the delay in sending them to you, for we had to wait for authority from the Council of the Society, to present them.' The rest of the letter concerns the large paper edition of the book, a copy of which Hopkinson offers to procure for Mrs Pryor 'at the subscription price'.

Handbill advertisement for 'The Celebrated Working Model, by Real Water, of a Copper Mine, [...] Now on View, At Exeter Hall, Strand.'

Author: 
T. Smith, Exeter Hall, the Strand [Robert Robinett, printer, White Street, Borough; Shows of London]
Publication details: 
[1834.] 'Robinett, Printer, White St. Borough.'
£75.00

Printed on one side of a piece of wove paper, dimensions 22 x 14 cm. Text clear and complete, on aged and lightly-spotted paper, with minor wear to extremities. Headed 'Under the Patronage of the Nobility and Gentry.' 48 lines of text, including positive quotations from the Observer, Christian Advocate, Sunday Times and Albion and Star. Describes ten aspects of the exhibition, lettered A to K, including the conveyance of the ore 'to the surface by a --- (G) --- POWERFUL HYDRAULIC MACHINE, first in kibbles, through a perpendicular shaft, and lastly in waggons drawn upon an inclined plane'.

Storage of Flood Water.

Author: 
Professor Henry Robinson, M.Inst.C.E., F.G.S. [sanitation; Victorian London sewers; sewage; sewerage; silage]
Publication details: 
Excerpt from Vol. XX., Part IV., of The Journal of The Sanitary Institute.' The Sanitary Institute. Congress at Southampton, 1899. Offices: Parkes Museum, Margaret Street, London, W.
£30.00

Octavo: 5 pps. Unbound. In original grey printed wraps. Very good, with thin strip of discoloration at foot of back wrap. Manuscript correction (by Robinson?) to one word, and pencil diagram of 'Waste Weir & flood Water Channel' drawn on blank verso of final leaf.

Scrapbook entitled 'Lightning and other Records.'

Author: 
Commander James Liddell, Royal Navy, of Bodmin, Cornwall [thunder and lightning; thunderstorms; natural phenomena; meteorology; the weather]
Publication details: 
1860-1879.
£225.00

Small quarto of around forty pages, covered in easily in excess of a hundred press cuttings, primarily relating to lightning strikes, thunder storms and other natural phenomena. Internally loose but in reasonable condition, but externally in need of attention: the heavily worn original quarter-binding, has the leather spine worn away. Manuscript label, in Liddell's hand, laid down on the marbled front board. Several of the cuttings reproduce letters from Lidddell himself, the first, dated 'Bodmin, Dec.

Facts about Fevers, Or Practical Rules for Preventing the Spread of Infection, Especially in Relation to Outbreaks of Scarlatina & Typhoid Fever.

Author: 
David Page, M.D., Edin.
Publication details: 
Kendal: Printed by Wm. Fisher, Stricklandgate. ['Netherfield, Kendal. January 1st, 1880.'
£45.00

Octavo: 15pp. Unbound and stitched, with original printed front wrap. Presentation copy, inscribed on front wrap 'With the Author's Compts | No. 4'. Good, with neat vertical fold and small glue stain to front wrap. 'There are few persons who, in the course of a lifetime manage to escape, and there is probably not a household which does escape, one or more of the numerous complaints which are popularly known as Fevers. [...] The object of this pamphlet is [...] to give shortly and to the point [...] that information about well-established Medical facts concerning these matters'.

Letter Signed "James C. Pilling", to E.S. Cox, State Geologist, Indianapolis, Ind.

Author: 
James C. Pilling, Ethnologist (here Chief Clerk of the Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian]
Publication details: 
Washington, DC, 19 July 1880.
£65.00

One page, 4to, body of letter secretarial, fold marks, fair condition, complete and legible: Our Library is minus the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th annual report of teh geological survey of your State, nor have we anything later than the 10th. I am directed by Maj. Powell [Director] to ask if you can furnish us with the same, & to say that we should be glad to send you any of the publications of this Office that you have not already received."

The Royal Society. Sir William Huggins, K.C.B., O.M., D.C.L., President. Conversazione. June 19th, 1903.

Author: 
[Sir William Huggins, President of the Royal Society; Conversazione, 1903]
Publication details: 
[1903.] Burlington House. [Harrison & Sons, Printers in Ordinary to His Majesty, St. Martin's Lane.]
£75.00

8vo, 24 pp. Stitched as issued. Well printed on good laid paper. Creased and aged. A programme, describing, often in detail, the forty-six exhibits, in the various rooms, from 'Photographs illustrative of the Coronation Naval Review, 1902' by Dr W. J. S. Lockyer, to 'Examples illustrating the Scientific and Educational Applications of the Bioscope.' Exhibitors include Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir William Crookes, Rutherford and Soddy ('The condensation of the radio-active emanations of radium and thorium by liquid air.') and the Solar Physics Observatory, South Kensington.

The Mackay-Bennett Atlantic Cable Charts and other material

Author: 
Siemens Bros & Co. London
Publication details: 
1865-1919
£1,500.00

A large collection of charts,over 70 (seventy), mainly 38 x 27", relating to the routes of submarine cables across the Atlantic, mainly to the cables laid by the Mackay-Bennett (of Titanic fame) between 1884 and 1901, but also drawing in other cables going back to 1866. The routes appear as coloured lines, dotted lines indicating assumed routes. There is considerable information about repair operations by such vessels as CS Faraday, and good detail about the routes.

The Traveller's Oracle; Or, Maxims for Locomotion: Containing Precepts for Promoting the Pleasures and Hints for Preserving the Health of Travellers. [Part II: 'By John Jervis, An Old Coachman.] [Including sheet music of eight songs by Kitchiner.]

Author: 
William Kitchiner ['John Jervis, An Old Coachman.']
Publication details: 
London: Henry Colburn, New Burlington Street. Second Edition, 1827. [London: Printed by J. Moyes, Took's Court, Chancery Lane.] [Sheet music engraved by Sidney Hall, Bury Street, Bloomsbury.]
£300.00

2 vols, 12mo. Vol.1: viii + 264 pp. Vol.2: viii + 336 pp. Complete, with all the engravings of sheet music listed in the contents (vol.1: five two-page plates and one four-page plate, with one more piece of music 'printed with the letterpress'; vol.2: one two-page plate). Both volumes good and tight, on lightly-aged and spotted paper. In worn contemporary half-calf binding, marbled boards, with the first volume rebacked. Each volume with bookplate of Frederic Perkins, Chipstead Place, Kent.

Presentation copy of offprint of article: 'Die Handschrift des Chronischen Arthritikers'.

Author: 
Thea Stein-Lewinson (1907-2000), German graphologist
Publication details: 
[1937. From 'Die Schrift'.] Verlag Rudolf M. Rohrer, Brunn.
£56.00

8vo: 14 pp, paginated 114-127. Presentation copy, inscribed on first page 'With the compliments of the author.' First page stamped 'DIE SCHRIFT | III J. 3 NR. | VERLAG RUDOLF M. ROHRER, BRUNN.' On browned, high-acidity paper, with chipping and flaking to extremities of first leaf. Four facsimiles of handwriting in text.

Offprint titled 'Air Ministry. Meteorological Office. Professional Notes. Vol. 3. No. 39. The Upper Air Circulation of the Atlantic Ocean. Published by the Authority of the Meteorological Committee.'

Author: 
E. W. Barlow [Edward William Barlow (b.1886)] [Air Ministry, Meteorological Office.]
Publication details: 
1925. London: Published by His Majesty's Stationery Office.
£28.00

8vo: 18 pp, paginated 200-217. Grubby and lightly-aged and creased, with rusty staples. Title-page headed 'For Official Use. M.O. 245s.' Scarce. No copy at the British Library, and the only copy on COPAC at Nottingham.

The Sickness Accident and Life Association Limited. Prospectus.

Author: 
The Sickness Accident and Life Association Limited [Friends Provident; life insurance; actuarial science]
Publication details: 
Foreword' dated 'Edinburgh, December, 1897.' [Printed by Morrison and Gibb Limited, Edinburgh.]
£45.00

12mo (leaf dimensions 13 x 9 cm): 62 pp. Folded 'Proposal' tipped in on perforated stub. Sewn into cream wraps, printed in red. Text clear and complete. Internally tight on lightly-aged paper. In worn and grubby wraps with a few ink notes on front. Index on p.ii (reverse of front wrap) gives sections (each with subsections) devoted to Sickness Department, Accident Department, Employers' Liability and Accidents to Workmen, Indemnity and Third Party Insurance, Fidelity Guarantees, and Life Department. Also lists Directors, Office-Bearers, Head Office and Branches.

Detailed coloured hand-drawn plan of a broad gauge locomotive, with dimensions, on large piece of cloth headed 'F.C.G.O.A.', and text in Spanish and English, designed by the Stephenson Locomotive Works for the Argentine Great Western Railway Company.

Author: 
Robert Stephenson & Co. Ltd., Locomotive Works, Darlington [railway engines; F.C.G.O.A.; Ferro Carril Gran Oeste Argentino; the Argentine Great Western Railway Company]
Publication details: 
Stamped 'ROBERT STEPHENSON & CO. LTD. | LOCOMOTIVE WORKS | 29 APR. 1907| DARLINGTON'.
£185.00

An attractive item, on one side of a piece of cloth roughly 57 x 94 cm. Good: lightly aged and creased. Side section of the engine roughly 21 x 61 cm, with dimensions in grey, outlines and other lines in purple, one block in pink and red, and a few small parts in blue. Also a cross-section from the front, of the left side of the train only, roughly 22 x 9.5 cm. Beneath the heading 'F.C.G.O.A. are six lines of neatly-written text, the first reading 'Trocha de. 1676<?> Gauge.

Typed 'Research Defence Society' document, urging the British Home Secretary Herbert J. Gladstone to issue the Report of the Royal Commission on Experiments on Animals, with the signatures of the twenty-three signatories.

Author: 
Research Defence Society [Herbert J. Gladstone; Sir Frederick Treves; Sir Edwin Ray Lankester; Sir Savile Crossley; Lascelles; Rothschild; vivisection; Royal Commission on Experiments on Animals]
Publication details: 
20 May 1909. 70 Harley Street, London.
£180.00

Foolscap bifolium (leaf dimensions roughly 32 x 20 cm): 3 pp. The letter itself is of fifteen lines, on the recto of the first leaf, with five signatures beneath it and the other eighteen on the following two pages. On aged and lightly-creased paper, with chipping to extremities and traces of glue from previous mounting on the blank reverse of the second leaf. A central vertical crease has been strengthened with a thin strip of archival tape. Founded in 1908 by Stephen Paget to defend the use of animals in scientific experimentation, the Research Defence Society is still in existence.

Autograph Letter Signed to Mrs Metcalfe, a letter of condolence on the death of her father, the surgeon Frederic Carpenter Skey.

Author: 
Henry Hancock (1809-1880), President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, London [Frederic Carpenter Skey (1798-1872), surgeon to St Bartholomew's Hospital; John Abernethy (1764-1831)]
Publication details: 
23 October 1872; on letterhead of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, London.
£75.00

12mo: 1 p. Good, on lightly-aged paper, with a couple of light spots at foot. Sixteen lines of closely-written text. He is forwarding a 'Copy of a Resolution unanimously adopted by the Council of this college on the 17 Inst'. He wishes to state his 'personal regret' at her 'great bereavement'.

Autograph Letter Signed ('T. M. Stone') to Mrs Metcalfe, on an 'eulogium' to her father Frederic Carpenter Skey, delivered by the President of the Royal College of Surgeons, Henry Hancock.

Author: 
Thomas Madden Stone (d.1894), Librarian to the Royal College of Surgeons of England, London [Henry Hancock (1809-1880); Frederic Carpenter Skey (1798-1872), surgeon to St Bartholomew's Hospital]
Publication details: 
28 February 1873; on the letterhead of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, London.
£56.00

12mo: 2 pp. 18 lines of text. Good. Reporting that 'Mr. Hancock our President' has 'paid such a well deserved eulogium to your honoured sire in his Hunterian Oration published fully in "the Medical Times & Gazette" of last Saturday'. Stone was 'much moved by it', and said to himself 'how pleased I should have been, had his children been present to hear and see how well it was rec[eive]d.' Makes a Latin quotation that has been 'truly [...] said of your noble father'. Skey is not mentioned by name, but the item is from the Skey family archives.

Offprint of paper entitled 'The Magnetic Spectrum of the [beta]-Rays Excited by [gamma]-Rays'.

Author: 
C.D. Ellis [Charles Drummond Ellis (1895-1980), FRS, nuclear physicist [Ernest Rutherford; James Chadwick; Cavendish Laboratory]
Publication details: 
From the 'Proceedings of the Royal Society', A, vol.99, 1921, pp.261-271. Harrison and Sons, Ltd., Printers in Ordinary to Her Majesty, St. Martin's Lane.
£125.00

8vo: 11 pp. One diagram. Text clear and complete. In original printed wraps. Aged and in grubby white wraps with printed details of the paper. Two punch holes in inner margin. With ownership inscription by Ellis's father Abraham Charles Ellis: 'A. C. Ellis, 40 Belsize Park Gardens, NW3'. Ellis was co-author, with Rutherford and Chadwick, of 'Radiations from Radioactive Substances' (CUP, 1930), a work said by A. R.

Offprint entitled 'The [gamma]-Rays of Radium (B + C) and of Thorium (C + C')'.

Author: 
C.D. Ellis [Charles Drummond Ellis (1895-1980), FRS, nuclear physicist; Ernest Rutherford; James Chadwick; Cavendish Laboratory]
Publication details: 
From the 'Proceedings of the Royal Society', A, vol.143, 1934, pp.350-357. Harrison and Sons, Ltd., Printers, St. Martin's Lane, London, W.C.2.
£125.00

8vo: 8 pp. With tables. In original green printed wraps. Lightly aged, but good, with two punch holes in inner margin. 'With the author's compliments' by Ellis on front wrap. Brief calculations in pencil at foot of last page. Ellis was co-author, with Rutherford and Chadwick, of 'Radiations from Radioactive Substances' (CUP, 1930), a work said by A. R.

Offprint of paper by Ellis and Aston entitled 'The Absolute Intensities and Internal Conversion Coefficients of the [gamma]-Rays of Radium B and Radium C.

Author: 
C.D. Ellis [Charles Drummond Ellis (1895-1980), FRS, nuclear physicist; G. H. Aston
Publication details: 
From the 'Proceedings of the Royal Society', A, vol.129, 1930, pp.180-207. Harrison and Sons, Ltd., Printers, St. Martin's Lane, London, W.C.2.
£125.00

8vo: 28 pp. Four figures and two tables. Lightly aged, but good. In original green printed wraps. Two punch holes in inner margin. 'With the compliments of the authors' by Aston on front wrap. Ellis was co-author, with Rutherford and Chadwick, of 'Radiations from Radioactive Substances' (CUP, 1930), a work said by A. R. Mackintosh ('The Third Man: Charles Drummond Ellis, 1895-1980', Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, July, 1995) to have been 'often referred to as the "Bible" of nuclear physics', with Ellis's contribution to the work placing him 'third among equals'.

Offprint of paper by Ellis and Aston entitled 'The Dependance of the Photographic Action of [beta]-Rays on their Velocity'.

Author: 
C.D. Ellis [Charles Drummond Ellis (1895-1980), FRS, nuclear physicist; G. H. Aston
Publication details: 
From the 'Proceedings of the Royal Society, A, vol.119, 1928, pp.645-650. Harrison and Sons, Ltd., Printers in Ordinary to Her Majesty, St. Martin's Lane.
£100.00

8vo: 6 pp. In green printed wraps. Lightly aged, but good. Two punch holes in inner margin. Ellis was co-author, with Rutherford and Chadwick, of 'Radiations from Radioactive Substances' (CUP, 1930), a work said by A. R. Mackintosh ('The Third Man: Charles Drummond Ellis, 1895-1980', Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, July, 1995) to have been 'often referred to as the "Bible" of nuclear physics', with Ellis's contribution to the work placing him 'third among equals'.

Offprint by Ellis and Mott entitled 'Energy Relations in the [gamma]-Ray Type of Radioactive Disintegration'.

Author: 
C.D. Ellis [Charles Drummond Ellis (1895-1980), FRS, nuclear physicist; Sir Nevill Francis Mott (1905-1996), winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics
Publication details: 
From the 'Proceedings of the Royal Society', A, vol.141, 1933, pp.502-511. Harrison and Sons, Ltd., Printers, St. Martin's Lane, London, W.C.2.
£125.00

8vo: 10 pp. Three figures. Lightly aged, but good. In original green printed wraps. Two punch holes to inner margin. 'With the compliments of the authors' by Ellis on front wrap. Ellis was co-author, with Rutherford and Chadwick, of 'Radiations from Radioactive Substances' (CUP, 1930), a work said by A. R. Mackintosh ('The Third Man: Charles Drummond Ellis, 1895-1980', Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, July, 1995) to have been 'often referred to as the "Bible" of nuclear physics', with Ellis's contribution to the work placing him 'third among equals'.

Offprint of paper by Ellis and Wooster entitled 'The Photographic Action of [beta]-Rays'.

Author: 
C.D. Ellis [Charles Drummond Ellis (1895-1980), FRS, nuclear physicist; W. A. Wooster, crystallographer
Publication details: 
From the 'Proceedings of the Royal Society', A, vol.114, 1927, pp.266-276. Harrison and Sons, Ltd., Printers in Ordinary to Her Majesty, St. Martin's Lane.
£100.00

8vo: 11 pp. Five figures. Good, on aged paper. In original green printed wraps. Two punch holes in inner margin. 'With the authors' compliments' by Wooster on front wrap. Ellis was co-author, with Rutherford and Chadwick, of 'Radiations from Radioactive Substances' (CUP, 1930), a work said by A. R. Mackintosh ('The Third Man: Charles Drummond Ellis, 1895-1980', Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, July, 1995) to have been 'often referred to as the "Bible" of nuclear physics', with Ellis's contribution to the work placing him 'third among equals'.

Autograph Letter Signed to John William Stuart, on the occasion of his brother Benjamin Whitworth's death.

Author: 
Robert Whitworth, philanthropist [Benjamin Whitworth (1816-1893), Liberal M.P. for Drogheda, Manchester cotton merchant; Whitby Lifeboat; temperance; Sunday observance]
Publication details: 
2 October 1893. 14 Brown Street, Manchester.
£95.00

8vo, 4 pp. Bifolium. Sixty-eight lines of text. Complete and legible, but damaged: grubby and creased, with short closed tears and small hole at gutter. Interesting and informative letter. Stuart's message of condolence on Benjamin Whitworth's death is one of many which 'have been very acceptable more especially to his widow who has been laid aside so long with bad health, his daughters have been quite worn out'. Describes how his brother's health 'began to break down after a slight attack of paralysis some two or three years ago when at John Brown & Co Ld.

Autograph Letter Signed ('Philippe de Larenaudière'), in French, to unnamed male editor of a journal.

Author: 
Philippe de Larenaudière [Philippe François de La Renaudière], nineteenth-century French mining engineer, geographer and traveller in the Americas
Publication details: 
Date and place not stated.
£65.00

4to, 1 p. Fourteen lines of text, on the recto of the first leaf of a bifolium. Text clear and complete, on lightly aged and creased paper. Slight staining at foot of text (affecting part of signature), and on the reverse of the second leaf of the bifolium, which is docketed 'la renaudié | A. S.' He is sending an article on 'la Bibliotheque des voyages'. Asks that the article on the work entitled 'Des Beaux arts en Angleterre', 'que Buisson vous adressa il ya prés de Deux mois', be inserted. 'Je vous prie en grace de laisser ma Signature en entier.

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