Sowerby Catalogue Volume IV : page 10

[par Antoine Joseph Pernetti et Dom Jean François de Brézillac]. Paris: Jombert, 1747.

3 vol. 8vo.; no copy was seen for collation.

Quérard X, 531.

Tassin, Histoire littéraire de la Congrégation de Saint-Maur, page 690.

Jefferson mentioned this work in his letter to Isaac McPherson of August 13, 1813, concerning patents and inventions: “ . . . the Chapelets are the revolving band of buckets which Shaw calls the Persian wheel, the moderns a Chain-pump, and mr Evans Elevators. the next of my books in which I find these Elevators is Wolf’s Cours de Mathematiques i. 370. & Pl. 1. Paris 1747. 8 ^vo. here are two forms. in one of them the buckets are square, attached to two chains, passing over a cylinder or wallower at top, & under another at bottom, by which they are made to revolve. it is a nearly exact representation of Evan’s elevators . . . ””

In his letter to L. H. Girardin, March 18, 1814, concerning Lord Napier’s inventions, Jefferson mentioned this book: “ . . . I have not the larger work of Wolf; and in the French translation of his abridgment (by some Member of the congregation of S ^t. Maur) the branch of Spherical trigonometry is entirely omitted . . . ”

For the full quotation, see no. 3667 above.

Freiherr Christian Von Wolff, 1679-1754, German philosopher and mathematician. The two translators of this work were members of the Congregation of St. Maur.

[3682]

Hutton’s Course of Mathematics by Adrain. 2. v. 8 ^vo.

1815 Catalogue, page 109, no. 20, as above.

HUTTON, Charles.

A Course of Mathematics. In Two Volumes. For the Use of Academies, as well as Private Tuition. By Charles Hutton, LL.D. F.R.S. late Professor of Mathematics in the Royal Military Academy. From the Fifth and Sixth London Editions. Revised and corrected by Robert Adrain, A.M. Fellow of the American Philosophical Society, and Professor of Mathematics in Queen’s College, New-Jersey. Vol. I [-II]. New-York: published by Samuel Campbell, William Falconer, T. & J. Swords [and others]. George Long, Printer. 1812.

First American Edition. 2 vol. 8vo. 330 and 282 leaves, 21 leaves of tables. No copy of this edition was seen for collation.

Karpinski, page 192.

Jefferson ordered a copy of this edition in a letter dated November 7, 1812, addressed to Samuel Pleasants of Richmond: “ I see advertised in your paper of the 7 ^th. Hutton’s Mathematics 2. v. 8 ^vo. 8. Dol. which I will pray you to send me . . . ”

Pleasants replied on November 13: “Your favor of the 7th inst. came to hand this morning . . . I regret extremely that all the copies of Hutton’s Mathematics had been disposed of previously to the receipt of your letter--nor can I procure one from any of the stores in town. I will however endeavour to procure a copy from the north as soon as possible and sent it to you without delay . . .””

One month later, on December 16, Pleasants wrote: “I have lodged with M ^r D Higginbotham of this place, a package containing a copy of Hutton’s Mathematics, which he has promised to forw ^d. by the first opportunity . . .”

In the previously quoted letter to Louis H. Girardin, written on March 18, 1814, Jefferson mentioned several of the works of Hutton. After the reference to Simpson’s Euclid, q.v., he wrote: “ . . . Hutton, in his Course of Mathematics, declines giving the rules as ‘too artificial to be applied by young ”