Mathematical notebook, and commonplace book, circa 1689-1769

Manuscript notebook, possibly kept by Harvard students, containing 17th century English transcriptions of arithmetic and geometry texts, one of which is dated 1689-1690; 18th century transcriptions from John Ward’s “The Young Mathematician’s Guide”; and notes on physics lectures delivered by John Winthrop, the Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Harvard from 1738 to 1779. The notebook also contains 18th century reading notes on Henry VIII, Tudor succession, and English history from Daniel Neal’s “The History of the Puritans” and David Hume’s “History of England,” and notes on Ancient history, taken mainly from Charles Rollin’s “The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians, Macedonians and Grecians.” Additionally included are an excerpt from Plutarch’s “Lives” and transcriptions of three articles from “The Gentleman’s Magazine, and Historical Chronicle,” published in 1769: “A Critique on the Works of Ovid”; a book review of “A New Voyage to the West-Indies”; and “Genuine Anecdotes of Celebrated Writers, &.” The flyleaf contains the inscription “Semper boni aliquid operis facito ut diabolus te semper inveniat occupatum,” a variation on a quote of Saint Jerome that translates approximately as “Always good to do some work so that the devil may always find you occupied.” In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Harvard College undergraduates often copied academic texts and lecture notes into personal notebooks in place of printed textbooks. Winthrop used Ward’s textbook in his class, while the books of Hume, Neal, and Rollin were used in history courses taught at Harvard in the 18th century.

Rabbinical manuscripts of Judah Monis, ca. 1700s

This leather-bound volume contains ten handwritten Hebrew texts presumably compiled by Judah Monis in the early 18th century. The pieces range from three to 150 pages on different sized leaves and appear to be in multiple hands. The last page of the volume has the struck-through inscription, "Judah Monis' Book" and accompanies a 44-page text. The texts are unattributed and undated, but have been identified as transcriptions of cabalistic writings and include a short biography of Isaac Luria (1533-1572) and extracts from the work of Luria, Hayyim ben Joseph Vital, Jacob ben Hayyim Zemah, Abraham ben Isaac of Granada, and Naphtali Bachrach. The transcriptions appear to be unattributed and undated.

Roolle de la monstre et reveue faicte en armes en la basse court du chasteau de Calumet : manuscript, 1605 Oct. 20

Manuscript document, in an unidentified hand, concerning the staffing of the garrison of Calumet, western Quebec, with 20 armed men, ordered and signed by the Governor Henry de Giou, lord of Caylus. Also signed by Cesar de Bonnefont and Amable de Basmaison.

Notes: on sermons : manuscript, 1689-1692

Contains a list of ministers and the dates and topics of their sermons. The ministers are from in and around Boston.

Extraits des Registres concernans les Affaires de Canada : manuscript, [not before 1708]

Concern French administration and government of Canada, 1663-1708.

al- Bustān fī dhikr al-awliyāʼ wa-al-ʻulamāʼ bi-Tilimsān

taʼlīf Abī ʻAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad, al-mulaqqab bi-Ibn Maryam al-Sharīf al-Malītī al-Madyūnī al-Tilimsānī ; wāfaqa ʻalá ṭabʻihi wa-iʻtaná bi-murājaʻati aṣlihi Muḥammad ibn Abī Shanab.

Şerh-i kasaid-i Mevlânâ Şevket

Commentary by Mehmed Murad Nakşbendi. Cf. İstanbul Üniversitesi Kütüphanesi Türkçe basmalar alfabe kataloğu, v. 2 (1956), p. 772.

Albania Propria ouero Superiore detta anche Macedonia Occidentale

descritta con disegni fatti sul luogo da Giacomo Cantelli da Vignola suddito e geografo del Sereniss. Sig. Duca di Modena.

ʻUyūn al-ḥussāb fī fann al-ḥisāb : manuscript, undated

Title from f. 1r.

Tuḥfat al-ʻIrāqayn : manuscript, 1604

Title supplied by cataloger.

Shujāʻ-i Ḥaydarī va-ʻajāʼib al-buldān : manuscript, undated

Fabulous accounts of the marvels of various real and imaginary countries.

al- Jawhar al-munaḍḍad fī maʻná Qul huwa Allāhu aḥad / li-muʼallifihā Aḥmad ibn Aḥmad ibn Aḥmad al-Biqāʻī al-Dimashqī al-Ṣūfī : manuscript, 1641

A Sufi commentary on Chapter 112 of the Qur'an.

Sabil al-Muhtadin lil-Tafaqquh fi Amr al-Din : manuscript, [18--]

Written in one column, 18 lines per page, in black ink.

[ Islamic hymns] : manuscript, undated

Title supplied by cataloger

(Table 1) Pollen analysis of peat horizons obtained from sediment cores of Beveroe-lagoon, Outer Flensburg Fjord

Pollen analytical studies were carried out on two sediment cores from Outer Flensburg Fjord taken by N. Exon (1972). 1) Based on the occurrence of Fagopyrum, the lower peat horizon (ca. 40 cm below mean sea level) of the inner lagoon near Beveroe developed after 1400 AD. The dominance of Pinus indicates that its formation may have taken place as late as the end of the 17th. Century. 2) Core No. 10872 from a water depth of 26.5 m contains the pollen zones VIII through the beginning of XI (Overbeck, 1950). Although salinity maxima fall in zone IX, they are not reflected in the pollen curves which show the normal picture found in South Jütland.