Student mathematical notebook of Ephraim Eliot, 1779

Handwritten mathematical notebook of Ephraim Eliot, kept in 1779 while he was a student at Harvard College. The volume contains rules, definitions, problems, drawings, and tables on arithmetic, geometry, trigonometry, surveying, calculating distances, and dialing. Some of the exercises are illustrated by unrefined hand-drawn diagrams, as well as a sketch of a mariner’s compass. The sections on navigation, mensuration of heights, and spherical geometry are titled but not completed. The ink of the later text, beginning with Trigonometry, is faded.

Concerning the Parts of Artithmetic-- Part 2d Vulgar Fractions-- Part 3d of Decimal & Fractions-- Part fourth Arithmetical Progression-- Part fifth Evolution or Extracting the Root out of all single powers by one Geometical Method-- Practical Geometry-- Dialling-- Surveying-- Trigonometry-- Mensuration of heights & distances-- Navigation the Mariners Compass.

Title supplied by cataloger. Received in the Harvard College Library on June 5, 1917 from the Misses Eliot of Cambridge.

Inside cover inscription: Manuscript No. 1 / Ephraim Eliot 1779."

Ephraim Eliot (1761-1827), a Boston druggist, was born in Boston on December 19, 1761, a son of Dr. Andrew Eliot (Harvard AB 1737), pastor of the New North Church in Boston. Eliot received an AB from Harvard in 1780 and an AM in 1782. He studied medicine before opening an apothecary in 1783. Eliot died on September 18, 1827.

The Harvard University Archives holds similar late 18th century mathematical notebooks by students William Emerson Faulkner (HUC 8795.353.26), Samuel Griffin (HUC 8784.353), Ebenezer Hill (HUC 8782.353), William Tudor (HUC 8795.353.88), and Thomas Noyes (HUC 8793.353).