References
- 1685 . A Scots Earl in Convenanting Times This brief summary of the Argyll Rebellion of is based on J. Willcock, (Edinburgh, 1907)
- 1933 . Oxford English Dictionary. To avoid confusion the term ‘dividers’ has been used in the modern sense of a pair of measuring compasses. A pair of dividers is understood to have two points, whereas a pair of compasses has a point and a pen or pencil in the other leg. The etymological derivation of the word ‘compass’ is uncertain. The mathematical instrument, ‘a pair of compasses’ or merely ‘compass’, is referred to by the latter name in a text of 1340. No distinction is made between the instrument with two points, which can measure as well as scribe arcs on metal, and the instrument with a drawing pen or pencil in one leg for scribing arcs on paper. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the term ‘dividers’ was used to describe measuring compasses opened and closed with a screw. By the end of the nineteenth century the term was being used in the present sense, i.e. compasses in which both legs terminate in points. (Oxford,. A general survey of the history of drawing instruments, including sections on compasses and dividers, can be found in H. W. Dickinson, ‘A brief history of draughtsmen's instruments’, Transactions of the Newcomen Society, XXVII.)
- 1657 . See, for example, the dividers illustrated on two mid-seventeenth-century Portulan charts at the National Maritime Museum: one by Nicholas Comberford, dated, of the southern coast of Virginia (N.M.M. Portulan 37), and another by John Burston, dated 1659, of the Mediterranean (N.M.M. Portulan 35)
- Transactions of the Newcomen Society These instruments are preserved in the Museo Nazionale, Naples. They are illustrated in H. W. Dickinson, ‘A brief history of draughtsmen's instruments’, XXVII (1949–50, 1950–1)
- 1864 . Spieghel der Zeevaerdt , first series 14 Lucas Janssz Waghenaer, (Leyden, 1584–5; copy examined); facsimile edition in the series Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, iv (London, with an introduction by R. A. Skelton. Reproductions of the title-page may be found in: E. G. R. Taylor and M. W. Richey, The Geometrical Seaman (London, 1962), p.; D. W. Waters, The Art of Navigation in England in Elizabethan and Early Stuart Times (London, 1950), facing p. 24
- 1586 . Speculum Nauticum Leyden Luca Ioannis Aurigario
- Ashley , Anthony . 1588 . The Mariner's Mirrour London (For details of the various editions of Spieghel der Zeevaerdt see: D. Gernez, ‘The works of Lucan Janssz Waghenaer’, Mariner's Mirror, XXIII (1937); R. A. Skelton, Decorative Printed Maps of the 15th to the 18th Centuries (London, 1952), introduction; C. Keoman, The History of Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer and his Spieghel der Zeevaerdt (Lausanne, 1964)
- 1954 . The Mariner's Mirrour 168 Reproductions of the title-page of can be found in D. W. Waters, op. cit., facing p.; E. G. R.Taylor, The Haven Finding Art (London, frontispiece; and R. A. Skelton, op. cit., plate 23
- Mariner's Mirror 4 I, no. I
- Ibid. 5
- In the Latin and English editions dividers are illustrated on charts nos. 3, 5, 7, 11, 16, 17 and 20 in part I, and 2 in part II. All but those illustrated on charts nos. 5, 16 and 20 are one-handed dividers. In the Dutch edition the pair illustrated on chart 5 are the one-handed design; apart from this exception all the other charts in the Latin edition are identical with respect to the dividers to those in the original Dutch edition. Chart 1 in part II of the Dutch edition became chart 2 in part II of the Latin and English editions
- A copy of this chart can be seen in R. A. Skelton, op. cit. plate 24
- 1963 . Navigating Instruments Salem See, for example, a pair in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, ref DI. 60, and two pairs in the Peabody Museum, Salem, refs. M. 2599, M. 2600; the latter pairs are illustrated in M. V. Brewington, plate XLV
- 1957 . 623 D. J. de S. Price, ‘The manufacture of scientific instruments, 1500–1700’, in Singer et al., A History of Technology III (Oxford
- 1555 . Nova Descriptio Hispaninae The illustration on the cartouche of Thomas Geminus, is of a pair of dividers presumably with inlet points. This map is reproduced in A. M. Hind, Engraving in England, 1 (Cambridge, 1952), plate 28
- 1617 . Catalogue of The Sir John Findlay Collection 61 A pair of one-handed dividers with inlet steel points, dated and made by Christoph Trechsher der Elter Mechanicus, were at one time on loan to the Royal Scottish Museum. They are illustrated in Sotheby and Co.'s (London, 1962), p., plate XVII. See also F. R. Maddison, A Supplement to a Catalogue of Scientific Instruments in the collection of J. S. Billmeir (Oxford and London, 1957), items 250, 254, plate XXXIV; and H. W. Dickinson, loc. cit., plates XVII and XVIII