Welcome to The Sloane Letters Project
A pilot of this project, Sir Hans Sloane’s Correspondence Online, was first launched at the University of Saskatchewan in 2010 to coincide with the 350th anniversary of Sir Hans Sloane’s birth. The project was renamed The Sloane Letters Project when it moved to this site in 2016.
The correspondence of Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) consists of thirty-eight volumes held at the British Library, London: MSS 4036-4069, 4075-4078. The letters are a rich source of information about topics such as scientific discourse, collections of antiquities, curiosities and books, patients’ illnesses, medical treatments and family history. Most of the letters were addressed to Sloane, but a few volumes were addressed to others (MSS 4063-4067) or written by Sloane (MSS 4068-4069).
So far, we have entered descriptions and metadata for Sloane MSS 4036-4053 and 4075, as well as several letters from each of the following: Sloane MSS 4054-4055, 4066, 4068-4069 and 4076. Several of these entries also include transcriptions. Further entries and transcriptions are being made available gradually.
Please, explore the website and database. You can search through the letters, learn about Sir Hans Sloane or the letters written to him, and peruse blog posts about interesting letters!
Random Letter
Author:Recipient:
[fol. 419]
Sr Upminster Jan: 17 1704/5
The days being short, & the ways dirty hinders me from
the great pleasure & satisfaction of your Meetings. Being therefore
not well able to some my self, I have sent you the what the
Society ordered me to give them an account of, viz my Obser-
vations of the Vibrations of Pendulums in Vacuou, & the Air.
I am now very busy in setteling the business of the
Flight of Sounds, which may be of good use, when I have
determined these following Enquiries, wch I have drawn up for
myself which I have send you in the same confused manner
in wch they came into my mind. Or if you; or out President (wch
I suppose is Mr Newton still) or the Society, would be pleased to
add any other Enquiries, I shall take it as a great favour to re-
ceive them, & will endeavour wth all care, diligence, & fidelity
to answer them. My Enquiries are 1. What Space Sounds fly
in a Second or any determinate Time? 2. Whether a Gun
Towards or Fromwards be heard the same Time? 3. Whether
the Motion of Sounds be the same in the Night as Day? 4. Whe-
ther in all States of the Atmosphere, when the ☿ [Mercury] is high or low,
theyr motion be the same? 5. Whether a Great & Small Gun be heard
in the same Time? 6. Whether in all Elevations of the Gun, as ho-
rizontal, at 10, 20, 45 or 90gr the Sound be heard in the same
Time? 7. Whether Favouring or Countrary Winds accelerate or
retard, or how affect a Sound? 8. Whether they move Swifter
in a Calm than a Strong Wind, as some assert? 9. Whether a Strong
Wind blowing across accelerateth or retardeth? 10. Whether they
Move swifter at first, & slower when near spent, as in other
violent motions? 10. [sic] Whether they are not rather Equable, as
whether in half the time they fly not half the Space, in a
quarter a quarter or? The first, & principall Enquiry, being what
the most curious & celebrated Authors have differed about (& not one of them in the right), put me
first upon endeavours to settle this matter. And therefore altho
I knew the Florentine Academy have determined some of these
things, yet I was willing to try over their experiments, especially
because I have opportunities of doing it at much greater dis-
tances than theirs were tryed at. I have allmost satisfied my
self about all the former Enquiries, which when I have fully
done I will impart it to the Society. I only want a few Guns
from the Tower or some such large distance (which I could see in the Evening) to fully con-
firm what I have already done.
There were large spots on the Sun the beginning of this month, wch I measured exactly every day that I
could see the Sun. They are now on the other side of the Sun, but when I last saw them, seemed Spiss enough
to bear another Revolution of the Sun. I expect to see them again, or no doubt Facula in their place, the
beginning of next week. For I have often observed, since spots have been on the Sun frequently the last Year
or two, That yr Maculae always end in Facula: which to me is an Argument that the Spots are a great Smoak
or Smother mafe at some new by the Eruptions of some new Volcano, or what else you will call it; & that
when that smoak is past, the Volcano burneth clear, & so maketh those there lucid, golden appearances
on the Suns Dish, wch goe by ye name of Facula. I have not time to add any more, the messenger yt
carrieth this being just come, but only yt I am
very affectionately Your humble servt
Wm Derham
Read more- Letter 0974
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