Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.15568

    Deformed lamb

    Date
    13 April 1667
    Creator
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p3a
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 94mm
    width (page): 41mm
    Subject
    Content object
    nature
       > animal
          > sheep
    Description
    A small figure of a deformed lamb born on 24 February 1667 to Robert Cloake, a joiner in the parish of Bere Ferrers, where Sir William Strode had a silver mine. This figure was enclosed in a letter by Samuel Colepress to Henry Oldenburg dated 12 April 1667.

    Samuel Colepress was a native of Plympton St Mar, outside Plymouth. Through Sir William Strode he became acquainted with Robert Boyle, whom he visited in London in the winter of 1666/7 when he probably also met Oldenburg. Colepress went to Leiden to study medicine in the spring of 1668, but appears to have died there in 1669. Despite his interests, he was never FRS (Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, ed. by Hall and Hall, vol. III, p. 311n).
    Transcription
    A draught of the lambe, as it was brought me, I inclose: he was noe Limner, that did it: Sr, I presume, your goodness, & my present weekness will gaine a pardon for my ill inditenig, & worse writeing.
    Transcribed by the Making Visible project
    Related fellows
    Henry Oldenburg (1612 - 1677, German) , Scientific correspondent
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > United Kingdom
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