Catalogue Entry: ALCH00060
Miscellaneous correspondence.
Custodial History
Bought at the Sotheby sale by Maggs Brothers for £7 and sold to Keynes on 4 August 1936 for the sale price plus 20%.
Sotheby Lot
SL144Contents
Original letter from 'Fran: Meheux' to Newton, 2 March 1683, in English, c. 200 words, 1 p. Reports the progress made by an unspecified chemist in extracting different coloured 'earths' from 'the first watter'. On reverse, in Newton's hand: a list of names of 21 people in the Stanford and Colsterworth district, four of whom are bracketed as 'Freeholders examined as witnesses'.
Original letter from John Drummond to Newton, in English, acknowledging a copy of the Opticks in Latin presented to the Royal College of Physicians, 20 July 1708, 1 p.
Original letter to Newton from John Chamberlayne, in English, regarding a Signior Bianchi, 21 Aug. 1710, 1 p., with theological notes on Plotinus and Marcellus on the reverse.
Copy of a letter from John Caswell to John Flamsteed concerning magnetism, not in Newton's hand, 14 October 1694, 5 pp.
Original letters from M. Pilkington to Mrs Savage, 20 February 1711, 2 pp., and from Henry Newton to Newton, December 1710, 4 pp., and a two-line note (not in Newton's hand and evidently written shortly after his death) on the dates of Newton's membership and presidency of the Royal Society.
Related Material
Meheux's letter printed in NC, 2: 386-7 (with the list on reverse as a footnote), Drummond's in NC, 4: 528, and Chamberlayne's in NC, 5: 59-60, without the theological notes.
