CIRCULAR SLIDE RULES, A COLLECTION OF 3 WORKS

i. Palmer, Aaron (1765-1842). A Key to the endless, self-computing scale, showing its application to the different rules of arithmetic, & c. Boston: Smith & Palmer, 1844, original blue cloth, cloth chipped near spine, [T&W P10; Checklist of American Imprints 44-4805; Karpinski p.439]ii. Palmer, Aaron (1765-1842). Palmer's pocket scale, with rules for its use in solving arithmetical and geometrical problems. Rochester: Canfield & Warren for the author, 1845, original reddish-brown cloth, metal pocket circular slide-rule attached to lower paste-down; with the first American edition, Boston: D.H. Ela for the author, 1845, with card version of the slide-rule attached to lower paste-down, joints slightly cracked, [T&W P11; Origins of Cyberspace 353]iii. Fuller, John Emery (1799-1878) and Palmer, Aaron (1765-1842). Improvement to Palmer's endless self-computing scale and key; adapting it to the different professions... New York: (n.p.), 1846, original blue cloth decorated in blind, lettered in gilt, pale pink endpapers; with another copy, brown cloth, very stained, both preserved in cloth folding box, (bought from Jeremy Norman, 1981), [T&W F103, F104; Karpinski p.472]8vo or 12mo (5 volumes in 3)

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing where approp
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Aaron Palmer and George G. Smith (an engraver) began the first slide rule manufacturing business in the United States in 1841. While linear slide rules were known in America (although not widely used) at the time, it is likely that the circular version was a novelty. John E. Fuller joined the business in 1845, and there are no further records of Aaron Palmer’s involvement. From that time on, the computing scale was produced under Fuller’s name.