About this Item
First edition, very rare, of Flamsteed's first work, and the only work he published while Astronomer Royal. It includes an improved version of Jeremiah Horrocks's calculations of the motions of the moon, which Flamsteed had prepared for publication in 1673. Flamsteed became interested in the moon's motion because of the problem of determining longitude, and it continued to occupy a special place in his work throughout his life. Flamsteed's "numerical tabulation of the 'equations of the moon?s centre' [pp. 95-97] achieved an accuracy greatly exceeding the better-known equant models available in England in the 1670s" (Gingerich, 'Note on Flamsteed's lunar tables,' British Journal for the History of Science 7 (1974), p. 257). Gingerich's opinion was that Flamsteed recalculated his tables for the present work making use of Kepler's law of equal areas (a different method had been used for the original Horrocksian tables), so that "in at least one important case Kepler's second law was being used in England before the publication of Newton's Principia (1687)" (ibid., p. 258). "It was [Flamsteed's] model in terms of which Newton conceived the moon's motion, his observations by means of which Newton improved the theory, and his incorporation of Newton's revisions that rendered them subject to test, modification, and use" (DSB).
Flamsteed also "described the use of a particular projection of the sphere (which he admitted was separately invented by Wren and perhaps also by Halley) and equivalent astronomical calculations, for the purpose of predicting eclipses and appulses and hence of finding longitude" (Willmoth, Sir Jonas Moore, p. 203).
The work was published both separately and as part of Jonas Moore's New Systeme of the Mathematicks (1681): it is listed separately by Wing, has its own title page and separate pagination, and the Macclesfield copy - Flamsteed's own - was bound separately in contemporary calf. Moore's work was intended for the boys at Christ's Hospital, but Flamsteed's book is likely to have been of more use to professional astronomers and navigators. RBH lists only one copy other than Macclesfield, and that in a modern binding (Bloomsbury, December 10, 2008, lot 26, $2,880).
Houzeau & Lancaster 12077; Macclesfield 792; Wing F1137.
4to, pp. [12], 104 with six plates, woodcut initials and headpieces (closed tear to one plate not affecting printing, damp stains mostly confined to the margins). Contemporary calf ruled in blind and with corner fleurons (expertly and sympathetically rebacked with later endpapers).
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