Catalogue Entry: ALCH00020

'Liber Mercurioum [sic: leg. 'Mercuriorum'] Corporum' (1668-75).

Author: Isaac Newton

Metadata: Not yet dated, in English , c. 3,000 words, 8 pp. on 4 ff.

Source: Keynes Ms. 31, King's College, Cambridge, UK

[Normalized Text (at Chymistry of Isaac Newton)]

Custodial History

Bought at the Sotheby sale by Maggs Brothers for £14 and sold to Keynes on 13 August 1936 for the sale price plus 20%. See Spargo, '1936 sale', 127.

Sotheby Lot

SL37

Contents

Seven pages of alchemical recipes followed by a table of (al)chemical symbols. Clearly not Newton's own composition though the source(s) has/have not been identified.

Related Material

Discussed, with a transcript of two of the recipes and facsimile of the table of symbols, in Dobbs, Foundations, 137-8.