Kalm's account of his visit to England : on his way to America in 1748 / translated by Joseph Lucas ; with two maps and several illustrations.

  • Pehr Kalm
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Kalm's account of his visit to England : on his way to America in 1748 / translated by Joseph Lucas ; with two maps and several illustrations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    round holes turned or cut out in the boxes. It was said that in this box there were 1,300 different kinds of gems. [Various other stones [T. I. p. 431], various Foreign curiosities, and a silly picture]. [T. I. p. 432.] Afterwards we went into a long narrow room where the greater part of Sir Hans Sloane’s rarities are. This room is about 12 feet broad. The height about 14 feet, the length was said to be 110 feet. Along the sides there stood at the bottom cabinets, skap, of sorts of Natural Curiosities, and other things, partly on them partly hung on the walls ; but about a fathom from the floor above the Natural Curiosities the walls were all covered with books. [The rest of p. 432 and 433 descriptions of contents of cabinets, also the greater part of 434, to same room.] [T. I. p. 434.] In another room we saw ... a machine to lay books on, when one wishes to read or requires several books at a time. I cannot so exactly describe it. It somewhat resembles such a wheel as there is in Stockholm at Norrbro (Northbridge), and is there driven by the stream [T. I. p. 435] but instead of each wing or board in that wheel there was here a long four- sided box, which was moveable on an axle, and seems to have had some weights in the bottom, for as this wheel was turned round, each box always had the same side downwards, The books were laid on the outer sloping sides of the box, and thus stood always in the same position, and went round with the wheel as it was turned. The length of this wheel was about 5 feet and its diameter about 3 or 4 feet. I do not remember, Jag kommer ej ihog, how many boxes there were, but one could have lying in front of him a very large number of books at a time. Here wesaw twenty-four volumes of rare books, all in costly bindings, given to Sir Ilans Sloane by the King of France.
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