Treatise on mathematics and astronomy: written about the year 1680, in Boston

Bound volume containing a late 17th century handwritten mathematical and astronomical text in one hand. The text is separated into mathematical and astronomical sections with rules, instructions for performing calculations, tables, and drawings. The subjects include arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and trigonometry, and segments have titles such as "Subtraction," "A decimal table of English coince," "Logarithes & their use," and "To find the true place of the sun." The text is undated and unattributed but references Briggs, Oughtred, Ramus, and Apollonius. Certain tables are calculated from latitudinal and longitudinal numbers associated with Boston, and many of the examples use dates in the 1670s and 1680. The manuscript pages are mounted onto unruled pages, and some of the manuscript pages are fragments.

Title transcribed from typed 20th century title page.

Received in the Harvard College Library on December 9, 1936, the gift of Leverett Saltonstall of Chestnut Hill.

A copy of "An interesting document relating to American mathematics," by David Eugene Smith, in "Scripta Mathematica," Vol. II, No. 3, May 1934, is tipped-in to the beginning of the volume, and describes the text.