Author: MANUSCRIPT
Title: Sector M.S. [spine title]. Volume of Manuscript Mathematical Notes.
Description: c. 1798? 8vo. 250 x 165 mm. Full contemporary calf a little worn to the head of the spine but sound. One loosely inserted page which continues a bound section of the book is watermarked 1798. 99 pages of manuscript with illustrative diagrams, plus blanks. A collection of neat mathematical manuscripts an a variety of topics relating to sectors, with examples, including: Construction of Sectional Lines, Of the Sector in General, the General Laws for Working Proportions by the Sectoral Lines, To Delineate the Visual lines of a Survey, How to Divide Circles and Lines, Some Uses of the Line of Polygons, Some Uses of the Lines and Sines, To Describe an Ellipsis, To Describe a Parabola, To Descriube a Cycloid, Of Tangents and Secants, To Project a Sphere in Plano, To Describe the True Sea Chart, sometimes called Weights or Mercator's, Line of Hours, To Describe a vertical Declining Dial, the use of the Line of Longitude, etc. The final 8 pages of manuscript consist of extracts from Roger Lang's Astronomy in Five Books [1742]. Apart from these final pages, the rest of the manuscript seems to be the author's own explanations of the various equations and examples and may be an attempt to produce his own book on the subject prior to publication, or to act as a teaching guide. Although there is a pencil ownership inscription on the end paper [Thomas Collinson], this is of a later date and gives no indication of the compiler of this fascinating manuscript.

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