Parallel ladders
Date
20 September 1664
Creator
Unknown, Artist
After
Walter Pope (1627 - 1714, British) , Astronomer
Object type
Archive reference number
Manuscript page number
p166
Material
Dimensions
height (page): 354mm
width (page): 238mm
width (page): 238mm
Subject
Description
A sketch of a series of parallel ladders leading down to a quicksilver mine in Friuli, Italy in a letter by Walter Pope to John Wilkins that was read to the Royal Society on 11 January 1665. The letter was printed, without this sketch of the ladder, in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vol. 1, no. 2 (April 1665).
This manuscript is a copy of Register Book no. 2 (RBO/2i) and some letters to the Royal Society, all from between 1662 and 1664.
Other instances of this sketch can be found at EL/P1/46/002 and LBO/1/198.
This manuscript is a copy of Register Book no. 2 (RBO/2i) and some letters to the Royal Society, all from between 1662 and 1664.
Other instances of this sketch can be found at EL/P1/46/002 and LBO/1/198.
Transcription
At the end of each Ladder there are boardes a crosse where wee may breath a little, the Ladders as I said are perpendicular but being imagined provided doe not make one Ladder but severall parrallelle ones in this manner.
Transcribed by the Making Visible project
Transcribed by the Making Visible project
Object history
At the meeting of the Royal Society on 11 January 1665, ‘Dr. Wilkins produced a letter written to him from Dr. Pope, dated at Venice, September 2, 1664, about the mines of mercury in Friuli, viz. how the mines are ordered; how this mineral is digged, of what colour, hardness, and weight it is; how it is got out of the ore; what engines are used; and what accidents befall the labourers, &c. The same letter contained likewise a description of the contrivance of blowing the fire in the brass works of Tivoli, where the water blows the fire, not by moving the bellows, but by making wind. It was ordered, that this letter be entered in the letter-book; and that Mr. Hooke consider of the engine mentioned in it to produce air by the fall of water’ (Birch 2:6).
The paper, but not the sketch of the ladder, is printed in Walter Pope to John Wilkins, 'Mines of Mercury in Friuli, and a way of producing Wind by the fall of water', Phil. Trans. vol. 1, no. 2 (April 1665), pp. 21-26.
The paper, but not the sketch of the ladder, is printed in Walter Pope to John Wilkins, 'Mines of Mercury in Friuli, and a way of producing Wind by the fall of water', Phil. Trans. vol. 1, no. 2 (April 1665), pp. 21-26.
Related fellows
Walter Pope (1627 - 1714, British) , Astronomer
Associated place