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Scientific Toys

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Gerard L'E. Turner
Gerard L'E. Turner
Affiliation:
Museum of the History of Science, Broad Street, Oxford OX1 3AZ, U.K.
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Abstract

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Type
Presidential Address
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , October 1987 , pp. 377 - 398
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1987

References

1 See, for example, Turner, G.L'E. & Levere, T.H., Van Marum's Scientific Instruments in Teyler's Museum (Martinus van Marum: Life and Work, Vol. IV, eds Forbes, R.J. et al. ) (Haarlem: Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen, 1973)Google Scholar; Turner, G.L'E., ‘Apparatus of Science in the Eighteenth Century’, Revista da Universidade de Coimbra, 26 (1977), 29 pp.Google Scholar; idem, ‘The London Trade in Scientific Instrument-Making in the Eighteenth Century’, Vistas in Astronomy, 20 (1976), pp. 173–182Google Scholar (Proceedings of the Symposium on the Origins, Achievement and Influence of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich: 1675–1975, 13–18 July 1975); idem, ‘The Cabinet of Experimental Philosophy’, in: Impey, Oliver and McGregor, Arthur (eds), The Origins of Museums: The Cabinet of Curiosities in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Europe (1985), chapter 25, pp. 214–222Google Scholar; idem, ‘Physical Sciences ar Oxford in the Eighteenth Century’, in: Sutherland, L.S. and Mitchell, L.G. (eds), The History of the University of Oxford, 1984–, 8 Vols, V, The Eighteenth Century, (1986), pp. 659–681.Google Scholar

2 Ruestow, Edward G., Physics at 17th and 18th-Century Leiden: Philosophy and the New Science in the University (The Hague, 1973), especially pp. 96ff.Google Scholar

3 Herrn Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach merkwürdige Reisen durch Niedersachsen Holland und Engelland, 3 Vols (i, Ulm and Memmingen, 1753; ii, Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1753; iii, Ulm, 1754), ii, 224–225Google Scholar. For a translation of part of this work, see London in 1710: From the Travels of Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach, translated and edited by Quarrell, W.H. and Mare, M. (London, 1934), quotation from p. 169.Google Scholar

4 Hauksbee, Francis [Snr], Physico-Mechanical Experiments on Various Subjects. Containing an Account of several Surprizing Phenomena Touching Light and Electricity, Producible on the Attrition of Bodies.… (London, 1709).Google Scholar

5 Turner, , ‘Physical Sciences at Oxford …’ (footnote 1), pp. 671fGoogle Scholar; Turner, and Levere, (footnote 1), pp. 14–15Google Scholar. Hackmann, W.D., ‘The Growth of Science in the Netherlands in the Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth centuries’, in Crosland, M.P. (ed.), The Emergence of Science in Western Europe (London, 1975), pp. 89–109.Google Scholar

6 Turner, ibid., p. 673.

7 Ibid., pp. 672–4.

8 Miller, Edward, That Noble Cabinet: A History of the British Museum (London, 1973), chapters 1 and 2Google Scholar; Chaldecott, J. A., Handbook of the King George III Collection of Scientific Instruments (London, 1951)Google Scholar; Turner, G.L'E., ‘The Auction Sales of the Earl of Bute's Instruments, 1793’, Annals of Science, 23 (1967), 213–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Turner, G.L'E., ‘Henry Baker, F.R.S., Founder of the Bakerian Lecture’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 29 (1974), 53–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Most of Henry Baker's correspondence is in John Rylands University Library of Manchester, MS English 19.

11 Millburn, John R., Benjamin Martin, Author, Instrument-maker, and ‘Country Showman’ (Leiden: Noordhoff, 1976)Google Scholar; idem, Benjamin Martin: Supplement (London, 1986)Google Scholar; idem, Retailer of the Sciences: Benjamin Martin's Scientific Instrument Catalogues, 1756–82 (London, 1986).Google Scholar

12 Cohen, I. Bernard, Some Early Tools of American Science: An Account of the Early Scientific Instruments and Mineralogical and Biological Collections in Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass., 1950)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wheatland, David P., The Apparatus of Science at Harvard 1766–1800 (Cambridge, Mass., 1968).Google Scholar

13 Warltire, John, Analysis of a Course of Lectures in Experimental Philosophy; With a Brief Account of the Most Necessary Instruments used in the Course, and the Gradual Improvements of Science: Intended chiefly for the Use of the Author's Audiences, 5th edn (Exeter, 1767).Google Scholar

14 Musson, A.E. and Robinson, Eric, Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution (Manchester, 1969), pp. 104–105Google Scholar. Chapter 3 has an excellent account of the travelling lecturers in Britain.

15 Martinus van Marum: Life and Works, Forbes, R.J., Lefebvre, E. and de Bruijn, J.D. (eds), 6 Vols, 1969–1976Google Scholar. For the later period, see Turner, G.L'E., ‘Teyler's Museum, Haarlem, during the Nineteenth Century’, in: de Clercq, P.R. (ed.), Nineteenth-Century Scientific Instruments and their Makers (Papers presented at the Fourth Scientific Instrument Symposium, Amsterdam 23–26 10 1984) (Amsterdam, 1985), pp. 227–240.Google Scholar

16 [James Keir], J.K., The First Part of a Dictionary of Chemistry, &c. (Birmingham, 1789), p. iii.Google Scholar

17 Sophie in London 1786 being the Diary of Sophie v. la Roche, Translated from the German with an Introductory Essay by Clare Williams (London, 1933), p. 136.Google Scholar

18 Bain, Alexander, Short History of the Electric Clock (1852), Hackmann, W.D. (ed.), (London, 1973), pp. vii–viii.Google Scholar

19 Brewster, David (ed.), James Ferguson's Lectures on Select Subjects in Mechanics …, 2nd edn, 2 Vols (Edinburgh, 1806), i, p. xGoogle Scholar; quoted by Musson, and Robinson, (footnote 14), p. 103.Google Scholar

20 For Van Etten and his precursors, see Hall, Trevor H., Mathematicall Recreations: An Exercise in Seventeenth-Century Bibliography (Leeds Studies in Bibliography and Textural Criticism) (Leeds), 1969Google Scholar. The theme is continued by the Bishop of Chester, Wilkins, John, Mathematical Magick: Or, the Wonders that may be performed by Mechanical Geometry (London, 1680)Google Scholar; Nollet, Jean-Antoine, L'Art des Expériences, ou Avis aux Amateurs de la Physique … 3 Vols (Paris, 1770)Google Scholar; Cuyot, Monsieur, Nouvelles Récréations physique et mathematiques, …, 3 Vols (Paris, 1786)Google Scholar; Lucas, Edouard, Récréations mathematiques, 4 Vols (Paris, 1883–1894)Google Scholar; Houdin, Robert, Magie et Physique amusante (Paris, 1898).Google Scholar

21 For an illustrated essay, see Turner, G.L'E., Nineteenth-Century Scientific Instruments (London, 1983), chapter 16, ‘Recreational Science’.Google Scholar

22 Anonymous; no date, but frontispiece is watermarked 1820.

23 Leeman, Fred, Anamorfosen: Een spel met waarneming, schijn en werklijkheid (Amsterdam, 1975)Google Scholar. For a bibliography on optical instruments, see Turner, G.L'E., Essays on the History of the Microscope (Oxford, 1980), chapter 2Google Scholar, ‘The History of Optical Instruments: A Brief Survey of Sources and Modern Studies’.

24 Morrison-Low, A.D., ‘Brewster and Scientific Instruments’, in ‘Martyr of Science’: Sir David Brewster, 1781–1868, Morrison-Low, A.D. and Christie, J.R.R. (eds) (Edinburgh, 1984), pp. 59–65 (p. 61)Google Scholar. This paper also deals with the stereoscope.

25 Chaldecott, J.A., ‘The Zograscope or Optical Diagonal Machine’, Annals of Science, 9 (1953), 315–322.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 For pre-cinema toys, see Ceram, C.W., Archaeology of the Cinema (London, 1965).Google Scholar

27 Ball, W.W. Rouse, Mathematical Recreations and Problems of Past and Present Times (London, 1892)Google Scholar. String figures are in the 9th and 10th editions, and also in his separate publication, String Figures (Cambridge, 1920; reprinted New York, 1969).Google Scholar

28 A fine, wooden example of the icosian game is in the library of the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin (see Figure 13). For an explanation of the Icosian Game, see Lucas, (footnote 20), ii, 210–222Google Scholar; and Ball, RouseMathematical Recreations (footnote 27), any edition.Google Scholar

29 Cane, R.F., ‘John H. Pepper—Analyst and Rainmaker’, The Royal Historical Society of Queensland, 9, no. 6 (1974–1975), pp. 116–133 (p. 117)Google Scholar; Altick, Richard D., The Shows of London (Cambridge, Mass., 1978), p. 382.Google Scholar

30 Bryant, Arthur, English Saga (1840–1940) (London, 1940), p. xi.Google Scholar