Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.15199

    Scolopendra marina

    Date
    24 February 1697
    Creator
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p7
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 397mm
    width (page): 250mm
    Subject
    Content object
    nature
       > animal
    Description
    Two drawings in graphite on smaller paper slips (140x60 mm each) attached to a larger piece of paper. This was probably drawn by Thomas Molyneux's wife, Katherine, who was the sister of Hugh Howard (1675-1737), the Irish portrait painter and collector. (See Papers of the Dublin Philosophical Society, ed. by K. Theodre Hoppen, 2 vols (Dublin, 2008), I, 266n6 and 314n11.)

    The paper on 'scolopendra marina' was read to the Royal Society on 24 February 1696 and printed as T. Molyneux, 'Not yet described Scolopendra Marina', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vol. 19, vol. 225 (February 1697), pp. 405-12.

    The verso of each drawing is covered in red chalk, which suggests that these were the images from which the engravings in the Philosophical Transactions were made.
    Transcription
    p. 001:
    I have lately mett with a remarkable Marine Animal, which I take to be one of the many non-descripts, that the Sea by reason of its vast extent, and profound depth, has hitherto reserv'd undiscovered; notwithstanding the dilligent Searches, that have bin made by Laborious Naturalists after these kinds of Productions.
    Transcribed by the Making Visible project
    Object history
    T. Molyneux, 'Not yet described Scolopendra Marina', Phil. Trans., vol. 19, no. 225 (February 1697), pp. 405-12. 'The whole description will be more plainly conceiv'd, by comparing it with the following Figures truly Drawn (by a Ladies Hand) the first Figure representing the back of the animal, the other its belly. Drawn as 'big as the life'' (p. 411).
    Related fellows
    Thomas Molyneux (1661 - 1733, Irish) , Physician
    John Locke (1632 - 1704, British) , Natural philosopher
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > Ireland
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