Student mathematical notebook of William Tudor, 1795

Notebook containing the handwritten mathematical exercises of William Tudor, kept in 1795 while he was an undergraduate at Harvard College. The volume contains rules, definitions, problems, drawings, and tables on geometry, trigonometry, surveying, calculating distances, sailing, and dialing. Some of the exercises are illustrated with hand-drawn diagrams. The Menusration of Heights and Distances section contains color drawings of buildings and trees, and some have been altered with notes in different hands and with humorous additions. For instance, a drawing of a tower was drawn into a figure titled “Egyptian Mummy.” Some of the images are identified: “A rude sketch of the Middlesex canal,” Genl Warren’s monument on Bunker Hill,” “Noddles Island,” “the fields of Elysium,” and the “Roxbury Canal.” The annotations and additional drawings are unattributed.

Elements of Geometry-- Construction of the Plain Scale-- Another Method of Constructing the Plain Scale-- Plane Trigonometry-- Oblique-angular Trigonometry-- Conic Sections-- Surveying-- Mensuration of Heights and Distances-- The Mariner's Compass-- Navigation-- Dialing

Title supplied by cataloger. Received in the Harvard College Library on November 26, 1934 from Frederic Tudor.

The Harvard University Archives holds similar late 18th century mathematical notebooks by students Ephraim Eliot (HUC 8779.353), William Emerson Faulkner (HUC 8795.353.26), Samuel Griffin (HUC 8784.353), Ebenezer Hill (HUC 8782.353), and Thomas Noyes (HUC 8793.353).

William Tudor (1779-1830), cofounder of the North American Review, was born on January 28, 1779 in Boston. He received an AB from Harvard in 1796 and an AM in 1799. In 1805, Tudor helped publish one of the earliest American literary magazines, the Monthly Anthology, and in 1814, he cofounded and was the first editor of the North American Review. Tudor served as the United States Consul in Lima, Peru from 1823 to 1827, and as charge d’affaires in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from 1827 to 1830. Tudor died on March 9, 1830 in Brazil.