The Correspondence of John Flamsteed, The First Astronomer Royal: Volume 3 PDF
Preview The Correspondence of John Flamsteed, The First Astronomer Royal: Volume 3
THE CORRESPONDENCE OF JOHN FLAMSTEED, THE FIRST ASTRONOMER ROYAL Frontispiece 1. Portrait of John Flamsteed by Thomas Gibson, painted in November 1712. Reproduced by permission of the President and Council of the Royal Society. Frontispiece 2. Flamsteed’s draft of Letter 1505,18 June 1719 (RGO 1/36, f. 991). Because of the deterioration of his handwriting, this, like most other letters written in the last few years of his life, was copied by an amanuensis before being sent. It is reproduced here by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library and the Director of PPARC. THE CORRESPONDENCE OF JOHN FLAMSTEED, THE FIRST ASTRONOMER ROYAL VOLUME THREE 1703-1719 COMPILED AND EDITED BY ERIC G. FORBES, AND (FOR MARIA FORBES) BY LESLEY MURDIŅ AND FRANCES WILLMOTH Boca Raton London New York CRC Press is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Firstpublished2002byIOPPublishingLtd Published2018byCRCPress Taylor&FrancisGroup 6000BrokenSoundParkwayNW,Suite300 BocaRaton,FL33487-2742 ©2002byTaylor&FrancisGroup,LLC CRCPressisanimprintofTaylor&FrancisGroup,anInformabusiness NoclaimtooriginalU.S.Governmentworks ISBN-13:978-0-7503-0763-5(hbk) Thisbookcontainsinformationobtainedfromauthenticandhighlyregardedsources.Reasonableeffortshavebeenmade topublishreliabledataandinformation,buttheauthorandpublishercannotassumeresponsibilityforthevalidityofall materialsortheconsequencesoftheiruse.Theauthorsandpublishershaveattemptedtotracethecopyrightholdersofall materialreproducedinthispublicationandapologizetocopyrightholdersifpermissiontopublishinthisformhasnot beenobtained.Ifanycopyrightmaterialhasnotbeenacknowledgedpleasewriteandletusknowsowemayrectifyin anyfuturereprint. ExceptaspermittedunderU.S.CopyrightLaw,nopartofthisbookmaybereprinted,reproduced,transmitted,orutilized inanyformbyanyelectronic,mechanical,orothermeans,nowknownorhereafterinvented,includingphotocopying, microfihning, and recording, orinany information storage orretrieval system, without writtenpermissionfrom the publishers. For permission to photocopy or use material electronically from this work, please access www. copyright.com (http://www.copyright.com/)orcontacttheCopyrightClearanceCenter,Inc.(CCC),222RosewoodDrive,Danvers,MA 01923,978-750-8400.CCCisanot-for-profitorganizationthatprovideslicensesandregistrationforavarietyofusers. Fororganizations thathave been granted aphotocopylicense bythe CCC, aseparate systemofpaymenthas been arranged. Trademark Notice: Productorcorporatenames maybetrademarks orregisteredtrademarks, andareusedonlyfor identificationandexplanationwithoutintenttoinfringe. VISit the Taylor & Francis Web site at http://www.taylorandfrancis.com and the CRC Press Web site at http://www.crcpress.com British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Acataloguerecord for thisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data are available CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix List of Letters xi Abbreviated References xxxix Glossary of Astronomical and other Technical Terms xli List of Symbols xlv Introduction xlvii Letters 901-1515 1 Appendix - Official Documents 927 Addenda to previous volumes 943 Biographical Notes 949 Index 975 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS For details of this project’s history and the many people who have assisted its progress, see the Preface and Acknowledgments in volume one. Work on the present volume has been supported by grants from the British Academy and the Isaac Newton Trust, and its publication has been assisted by a grant from the Scouloudi Foundation in association with the Institute of Historical Research. I am very grateful for this support, and to Professor Nick lardine of the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge, and the Departmental Administrator Tamara Hug, for administering the money. The project has continued to be housed by Cambridge Uni versity Library, despite increasing limitations on office space there; the Library management’s forbearance has enabled this volume to be completed without too much disruption. I also thank the Master and Fellows of Jesus College, Cambridge, both for their contribution towards the pro ject’s running expenses and for their generous tolerance as employers. On the intellectual side, I am indebted to many colleagues at Cambridge University Library for their advice and help: to the staff of the Department of Manuscripts in general and especially to Adam Perkins, RGO Archivist, for facilitating access to documents and discussing queries; to Valerie Hall for French translation, John Hall for Greek, and Elisabeth Leedham-Green for un ravelling palaeographical puzzles; and to the staff of the Darwin letters project for friendly en couragement. The project has benefited over many years from the assistance of staff at other institutions holding Flamsteed material (as listed in the next paragraph), especially those of the Royal Society’s Library. I am also grateful to Irene Hughes for her accurate wordprocessing of texts for the present volume, to Margaret Farrar for helping with the checking of transcriptions and with some of the final editorial tasks, and above all to Rosemary Yallop for voluntarily checking and proof-reading a formidable pile of printout. Janet Dudley has compiled the index, and is preparing a cumulative index of all three volumes (incorporating a reindexing of volume one), which will be available in electronic form through IOP’s website (at flamsteed.iop.org). Finally, on behalf of everyone who has devoted time and effort to the project, I would like to thank Jim Revill and his staff at IOP for their continuing commitment to its completion. We are grateful for permission to reproduce documents in the possession of (in order of their appearance): the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (in respect of the Royal Greenwich Observatory Archives, at Cambridge University Library); the President and Council of the Royal Society; the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford; Saltykov-Skchedrin State Public Library, St Petersburg; the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth; a private owner; the Royal Astronomical Society; the Syndics of Cambridge University Library; the Master and Fel lows of St John’s College, Cambridge; the Public Record Office; the Öffentliche Bibliothek der Universität Basel; the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; the British Astronomi cal Association; Columbia University Libraries, New York; the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh; and the Biblioteca Universaria, Pisa. Finally, on a more personal note, I should like to thank Mr Derek Finnis of Salisbury District Hospital, and Mr Robin Crawford and Dr Helena Earl, both of Addenbrookes Hospital, Cam bridge, with their colleagues and staff, whose timely and skilful interventions have ensured my survival to complete this final volume. I owe an even greater than usual debt of gratitude to my family and friends for their support during this alarming episode.
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