Letter 0610

Southwell returns the draft for Sloane to proofread. His son wants Sloane to see what Mr Bidloo wrote to him. He informs Sloane that he has been reading about the corrosion of rivers, especially the River Arno in Florence, but the terms in the work render it ‘algebra to a stranger’. Only a few pages would be useful to the general reader. Southwell does not understand the methods the book describes for cleansing and restoring ancient riverbeds. Sir Robert Southwell was a diplomat and government official. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1662, and was elected president from 1690 to 1695 (Toby Barnard, Southwell, Sir Robert (16351702), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/26066, accessed 19 June 2013]).