The Erwin Tomash Library on the History of Computing

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Lot 104
  • 104

CARTWRIGHT, THE WEL-SPRING OF SCIENCES, 1661, MANUSCRIPT ON PAPER

Estimate
1,000 - 1,500 GBP
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Description

  • The Wel-Spring of Sciences Which teacheth the use and practice of Arithmetick necessary for ech person belonging to Art or trade ... 1661
8vo, manuscript on paper in English, in 2 parts, 180 pages, plus blanks, fair copy in secretary and italic hands with calligraphic title pages and headings, with a prefatory poem "To all that wish well to Arithmetick" in 98 lines of rhyming couplets, dated 1661, contemporary blind-tooled sheep with clasps, rebacked with new endpapers, lacking one clasp

Provenance

Robert B. Honeyman (1897-1987), sale in these rooms, 2 May 1979, lot 1123; bought from Colin and Charlotte Franklin, Oxfordshire, 1990

Literature

Tomash & Williams C29 and C30

Catalogue Note

AN UNPUBLISHED TREATISE ON PRACTICAL ARITHMETIC. It includes notes and examples of the basic operations, both with integers and broken numbers, descriptions of the rule of three and other techniques, as well as calculations of weights and measures. One unusual feature is a very early example of a perpetual almanac above the erased name "John Adam", with an accompanying mnemonic. A similar almanac was later published in Samuel Morland, The Description and Use of Two Arithmetick Instruments (1673). The author, Richard Cartwright, is otherwise unknown.