Lot 75
Greaves, John
Miscellaneous Works of Mr. John Greaves, Professor of Astronomy in the University of Oxford
The Library of James Stirling, Mathematician
Auction: 23 October 2025 from 13:00 GMT
Description
Many of which are now first published. London: J. Hughs, 1737. 2 volumes, 8vo (19.4 x 11.4cm), contemporary sprinkled calf, 7 (of 8 engraved) plates (including 4 folding), occasional Arabic and Hebrew types, manuscript annotations by James Stirling (1692-1770) to margins of several pages (e.g. volume 1 pp. 2 ‘Pocock mentions a pyramid of brick’, 208, 278, 342, volume 2 pp. 410, 494, 522), manuscript calculations and further notes also in his hand (in pencil and ink) to endpapers (e.g. ‘Sherif signified noble hence coemes the English name of the old goild coins vid. Pococke', volume 1 label chipped, plate facing p. 79 with split to fold, old repair to foot of s3, occasional finger-soiling, a few leaves dog-eared [Wallis 346 for ‘A Dissertation upon the Sacred Cubit of the Jews’; Babson 230 refers] (2)
Footnote
First collected edition, including the first edition in any language of Isaac Newton's ‘A Dissertation upon the Sacred Cubit of the Jews … Translated from the Latin of Isaac Newton, not yet published’ (volume 2, pp. 405-433), which itself refers at length to Greaves's own work on the subject, Pyramidographia (1646). Stirling's notes and markings in this copy are related chiefly to passages on ancient weights and measures, on which subject he wrote an unpublished manuscript treatise (see lot 73).