Catalogue Entry: ALCH00024

Notes on various alchemical texts (early 1680s?).

Author: Isaac Newton

Metadata: Not yet dated, mainly in Latin but with several sections in English , c. 26,100 words, 45 pp. on 30 ff. of which 3 blank.

Source: Keynes Ms. 35, King's College, Cambridge, UK

[Normalized Text (at Chymistry of Isaac Newton)]

Custodial History

Bought at the Sotheby sale by Gabriel Wells for £44. Yahuda told Keynes on 11 November 1936 that he had bought it and an exchange was agreed: see notes to Yahuda Var. 1 Ms. 24 and Spargo, '1936 sale', 130.

Sotheby Lot

SL50

Contents

a) 'Cap 1.', text beginning 'Quomodo metalla generantur', in Latin, c. 1,200 words, 3 pp.

b) 'Cap 3 De radice semine spermate et corpore mineralium', in Latin, c. 1,200 words, 3 pp.

c) 'Cap 3 De Mineralibus ex quibus lapis desumitur', in Latin but including an English verse extract from Thomas Norton, c. 3,500 words, 11 pp.

d) Untitled notes on mercury, lead, tin, sulphur and iron, in Latin and English, citing a very wide range of authors, c. 4,500 words, 14 pp.

e) 'De Mercurio duplato', in Latin, 4 pp., with the sub-headings: 'Ex Turba', 'Ex Artephio', 'Ex Bernardo Trevisano', 'Ex Flamelli Annotationibus'; followed by an earlier draft also headed 'De [mercurio] duplato' (1 p.) and notes out of Dionysius Zacharias (1 p.); in all c. 1,600 words.

f) 'De conjunctione in hora nativitatis', in Latin and English, c. 2,500 words, 8 pp.

Originally enclosed in a wrapper bearing a list of contents, which has somehow found its way into Keynes Ms. 30 (f. 1).

Notes

Sections (e) and (f) are wrongly described in the Sotheby catalogue as 5 and 4 pp. respectively.