FOSTER, SAMUEL. Miscellanies; or, Mathematical Lucubrations. Latin and English text; edited by John Twysden. 11 engraved plates. 17 parts in one volume. Folio, 278x181 mm, 20th-century leatherette; contents browned and brittle with occasionally heavy marginal soiling, scattered stains, foxing, and early marginalia, outer portion of general titles torn with text loss, folding plates cropped close in outer margin without image loss and worn along fore edges, last leaf chipped along edges and heavily soiled on verso, early owners' inscriptions at beginning and end. London: R. & W. Leybourn, 1659
only collected edition of writings on mathematics, astronomy, and scientific instruments by Foster (d. 1652), one of the earliest observational astronomers in England, also noted for his work on sundial design. This collection also includes a Latin epitome of the 3rd-century B.C. tract by Aristarchus of Samos on the sizes of the sun and moon and their distances from the Earth and each other; and thefirst edition of the lemmata attributed to archimedes on the geometry of circles, translated into Latin by the astronomer and orientalist John Greaves from the 9th-century Arabic version by Thabit ibn Qurra and the 11th-century scholia by 'Ali ibn Ahmad al-Nasawi. Taylor, Mathematical Practitioners (Tudor & Stuart), pages 206 and 367; Hoffmann I, 231; Wing F1634; ESTC R233512.
Following the 8 unnumbered preliminaries (2 general titles, table of contents, 2 dedications, and preface), the contents are as follows:
Stellae fixae. 27, [1] pages.
Astroscopium. Latin and English text. Engraved plate. 8 [i. e., 4], 4 pages.
Of the Planetary Instruments. Latin and English text. 2 engraved plates. 48 pages.
Observationes eclipsium. Latin and English text. 20 pages.
An easie way to calculate Tables of the Suns Horarie altit. for any latitude. Latin and English text. 8 pages.
Certain Mathematical Problems, (Concerning Triangles as well Oblique as Rectangled), analytically resolved and effected. Latin and English text. 2 folding engraved plates, the first loose and darkened and frayed along top and bottom edges. 36 pages.
Epitome Aristarchi Samii De Magnitudinibus, & Distantii Trium Corporum, Solis, Lunae, & Terrae. 4 pages.
Lemmata Archimedis. Engraved plate, loose, darkened and frayed along top and bottom edges, and cropped in inner and outer margins close to rule border. 17, [1] pages.
The Geometrical Square: with the Use thereof in Plain and Spherical Trigonometrie. Chiefly intended for the more easie finding of the Hour and Azimuth. 26 pages.
Of Projection. 2 engraved plates. 40 pages.
Mr. Samuel Foster his Precepts, concerning Refracted Dials. 16 pages.
The Whole Art of Reflex Dialling, shewing the Way to Draw All Manner of Dialls. Folding engraved plate. [2], 6 [i. e., 15] pages.
Appendix. [1], 10 pages.
Aequations arising from a Quantity divided into Two Unequal Parts; and the Second Book of Euclides Elements, demonstrated by Species. 7, [1] pages, with errata on last page. An additional leaf of errata found in some copies is not present here.
