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Hard cover, in cream colored cloth, with gilt insignia of the Napier family to center front, and gilt title to spine, 15 plates, 441 pp. Printer's colophon at rear:" T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty, at Edinburgh University Press." Ex-library. Maroon red endpapers coordinate nicely with the frontispiece portrait of John Napier, Baron of Merchiston in color, reproduced from a painting owned by the University of Edinburgh. Engraved library bookplate and two blindstamps are among the front matter; also an inked stamp with collection notation in pen. Condition: Very Good. Edges, especially top edge, are a bit dusty, and there is slight soiling to the cream colored exterior, a bit of darkening to the spine.Some mild crimping to head and foot of spine. Corners are minimally rubbed. Light age-toning to the text, with offset to half title page. Slight offset to title page from frontispiece portrait.*** Sir John Napier, Baron of Merchiston (1550-1617), is here described by David Hume as "the person to whom the title of great man is more justly due than to any other whom his country ever produced," in the biographical essay on his life and significance by P.Hume Brown. The inaugural address written by Lord Moulton, which was given at the opening of an international Congress in Edinburgh in 1914, provides some salient highlights of Napier's extraordinary career. The Scottish Renaissance polymath, while most notable for contributions to mathematics, also wrote a work on the Apocalypse, was suspected of black magic, and devised a mirrored device to set fire to enemy ships. There follow numerous other essays on the foundational nature of his 1614 work" Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio" where the invention of logarithms, decimal fractions and the calculation of spheres are addressed, in addition to his influence on the development of later calculating machines. The book was accompanied by an exhibition held at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, just at the outbreak of the first World War, and a separate volume accompanied the objects in museum exhibit. The 1889 translation of William Rae Macdonald's "The Construction of the Wonderful Canon of Logarithms by John Napier, Baron of Merchiston. Translated into English from Latin…" (1889) is liberally quoted from. [Note: We have the author's own copy of that work available in our listing No. FINE8610, presented in a unique fine binding done by Macdonald's wife, Annie S. Macdonald] OCLC 718111010
Ref: MATH 8616
$95.00