The Life, Times, and Scientific Labours of the Second Marquis of Worcester / To which is added a reprint of his Century of Inventions, 1663, with a Commentary thereon.

by Henry Dircks

[9]of, omitted.

[1]and—for with.

[2]most part.

[3]feet. P.

[4]Belford. MS. and P.

[5]and yet living can.

[6]testify—for justify. P.

[7]upper—for lower. MS. and P.

[8]lower—for upper. MS. and P.

[An advantageous change of Centres.] This is the most minutely as well as circumstantially noted of all the Marquis’s inventions; yet we have no evidence of his ever afterwards recurring to it. The mention of Sir William Balfour makes it probable that the exhibition of this great weighted wheel took place between 1638 and 1641. [See Life, Times, &c., page 25.] Dr. John Dee, in his celebrated preface to Sir Henry Billingsley’s first English edition of Euclid, published in folio, 1570, speaks of such a machine, as not only possible, but as having been actually constructed, and “a thing most incredible if not seen;” this, compared with the language used by the Marquis, would lead to the supposition that he had not only read but copied the passage.