This now-uncommon textbook is illustrated with five folding engraved plates of diagrams. WorldCat showsjust one U.S. institution (Society of the Cincinnati) reporting a copy, and only a handful of overseas holdings.

Provenance:  Title-page with early inked inscription “de Ratzenried” and front pastedown with von Ratzenried armorial bookplate (coat of arms showing greyhounds and a moon with clouds) labelled F.C.V.R.: possibly Franz Carl Anton von und zu Ratzenried.

•  Contemporary mottled calf, board edges with gilt roll, spine with raised bands, gilt-stamped leather title-label, and compartments gilt extra; light wear overall, edges and joints moderately rubbed. All edges speckled red. Bookplate and inscription as above. Pages with occasional small pencilled marks of emphasis, otherwise clean; one plate with outer edge slightly tattered. A very nice copy, in contemporary binding, of a scarce practical compendium.  (40246)

Binding:  Original cartonné binding; title inked on spine, text untrimmed and partially unopened.

•  Catalogo ragionato dei libri d’arte e d’antichità posseduti dal conte Cicognara, 389; Riccardi, P. Biblioteca matematica italiana, vol. I, col. 16–7.   Bound as above, gently rubbed with squiggle of wormtracking through front board and first leaves including half title/frontispiece, portrait, and title-page, with delicate repairs thereto. Two central sections with light staining to upper outer corners, as of old, very light blue ink; some late leaves with slim crescent of old and likewise light waterstain just into top margins; two leaves with limited in-press ink smears (and a few mispaginations). Nice copy of an important work.  (37209)

•  VD17 3:301520H.   19th-century half calf and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped leather title and date label; mildly rubbed overall. Title-page with rectangular portion on either side of printer's device excised and repaired (repair apparently done some time ago), with excision just barely touching the ends of the motto banner. First few leaves browned; foxing and offsetting throughout. A worthwhile exploration of mathematical thought as it stood toward the close of the 17th century, and a good solid copy.  (39902)

Provenance:  From the children's book collection of Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  Buff-color printed wrappers with hand-colored vignette on front wrapper; stitched, head and foot of spine chipped, rear wrapper detached and reattached with archival tissue. A good++ copy.  (38873)

Rumker’s catalogue of stars visible in the southern hemisphere had both a purely scientific aim and a practical one. The systematic study and cataloguing of the stars visible with the aid of observatory-based telescopy in the southern hemisphere was in its infancy in the 1820s: The Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope was established in 1820 and was the first permanent astronomical observatory in the southern hemisphere. Thus one can see the importance of Parramatta being up and working in 1822. On the practical side, Gov. Brisbane was a naval officer who knew the importance of the stars in navigation. Rumker’s work and his catalogue served both science and the Royal Navy, as he offered “Constants of Aberration and Nutation”; a “Comparison of my Observations with those made by La Caille”; and notes on “Double Stars,” “Magnitudes and Colour of the Stars, Nebula's, &c.,” and so forth — with the grand quotation of our caption being taken from his Preface.

Searches of NUC and WorldCat locate only nine copies in U.S. libraries.

Provenance:  Presented to Alexander Dallas Bache, a great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin and at the time of publication of this work a professor of natural philosophy and chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania: “Professor A.D. Bache / with the author's Compts.” in ink on the front wrapper.

•  Publisher's blue-green wrappers, covers stained and separating; text block stitched as issued. Overall age-toning; occasional foxing; faint waterstaining in upper third of most pages. Overall a good++ copy.  (35203)

Provenance:  Title-page with signed inked inscription noting presentation by the author to a Monsieur Robieux as a mark “d'estime, de considération, et d'amitié.” Later from the residue of the stock of the F. Thomas Heller bookselling firm (est. ca. 1928).

•  Stitched in contemporary paper wrappers, faded to rose-pink and worn. Two spots of pinhole worming throughout, touching letters without affecting sense. A solid and very readable copy of this uncommon item.  (40214)

•  ESTC T77585. On Simpson, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online).   Period-style quarter speckled calf with marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title and gilt-ruled raised bands. One leaf of advertising reported after the second title-page of some copies not present here (with no sign of loss or excision). First few leaves with upper outer corners worn; one tiny spot of pinhole worming to outer margins of first half of volume; a very few ink droplets and small spots of foxing, pages otherwise clean. An important mathematical treatise, now uncommon on the market, here in a simple but elegant, distinguished, and solid binding.  (39974)