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On the History of Gunter's Scale and the Slide Rule During the Seventeenth Century

Note 20 — III. RICHARD DELAMAIN’S GRAMMELOGIA

Reading edition

Grammelogia IV

has two title pages. The first is

Mirifica Logarithmoru’ Projectio Circularis

. There follows a diagram of a circular slide rule, with the inscription within the innermost ring:

Nil Finis, Motvs, Circvlvs vllvs Habet

. The second title page is as follows:

Grammelogia | Or, the Mathematicall Ring. | Extracted from the Logarythmes, and projected Circular: Now published in the | inlargement thereof unto any magnitude fit for use: shewing any reason- | able capacity that hath not Arithmeticke how to resolve and worke, | all ordinary operations of Arithmeticke: | And those that are most difficult with greatest facilitie, the extracti- | on of Rootes, the valuation of Leases, &c. the measuring of Plaines and Solids, | with the resolution of Plaine and Sphericall Triangles applied to the | Practicall parts of Geometrie, Horologographie, Geographie | Fortification, Navigation, Astronomie, &c. | And that onely by an ocular inspection, and a Circular motion, Invented and first published, by R. Delamain, Teacher, and Student of the Mathematicks. | Naturae secreta tempus aperit. |

There is no date. There follows the diagram of a second circular slide rule, with the inscription within the innermost ring: Typus proiectionis Annuli adaucti vt in Conslusione Lybri praelo commissi, Anno 1630 promisi. There are numerous drawings in the Grammelogia, all of which, excepting the drawings of slide rules on the engraved title-pages of Grammelogia IV and V, were printed upon separate pieces of paper and then inserted by hand into the vacant spaces on the printed pages reserved for them. Some drawings are missing, so that the Bodleian Grammelogia IV differs in this respect slightly from the copy in the British Museum and from the British Museum copy of Grammelogia V.

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