Egerton MS 3801

NAVIGATION: notebook containing exercises and diagrams on navigation, geometry and arithmetic, sailing directions, astronomical tables and various miscellaneous entries including 'A present Metson for the Agewe' attributed to 'Sr Water Raylishe 1616'. Written in various hands, circa 1600 to 1616, and apparently connected with the English East India Company. Formerly in the collection of Boies Penrose. Transferred from the Map Library, August 1979.

Paper; ff. iii+71. 212 x 167mm. First and last gatherings reinforced with vellum. Bound in limp vellum ruled in gold.

Includes:

1. ff. 1v-2v. Part of a journal of a voyage to the West Indies and sketch profiles of the island of Margarita, 1600.

2. ff. 3-6. Sections on elementary mathematics 'off fractions', 'division', etc.

3. ff. 13-21v. Exercises on practical navigation, 'To knowe ye true height of the sonne at Est or West and what aclocke it is at the same instant in any elivation', 'to find the variation of the compass a magneticall instrument' (f. 21), etc.

4. ff. 22-23v, 42v (rev.). Various notes on matters relating to seamanship, such as the measurement of masts and keels, and the 'cementinge and peeteringe of lodstones' (f. 42v), etc.

5. ff. 24v-32, 61-52v (rev.), 47v (rev.). Sections on geometry and the 'doctrine of triangles'.

6. ff. 40-39 (rev.). Various astronomical tables including 'the declination of the Sune upon every severall degree of the Eclipticke through out all the four quaryters of the Zodiack'.

7. ff. 67v-64 (rev.). Sailing directions for entering the river Thames with notes on the approaches made in the Foresight dated 1605 and 1607 accompanied by sketches of the channels in the margins.

8. ff. 69-68v (rev.). The use of the astrolabe and the construction and use of a backstaff called the 'Doble Radius'.

9. Miscellaneous entries: a receipt (f. 63v) from Audrie Wright for payment of her son John Wright's wages on board the Hector, a recipe (f. 41v) 'To helpe Tobacoe and to give it an exelent collor and pleasent in taste', and mention of a number of personal names including Richard Wright (f. ii), possibly the secretary to the East India Company circa 1602-1606, a Mr Fox, Sir William Rumney, second governor to the East India Company (f. 33), Mr Simonson, John Leonard, and others.