Letter 3270

Desaguliers sends the bill for Levinus Vincent’s book, which Sloane purchased. He informs Sloane of a Frenchman travelling with the ‘Compe des Indes’ to collect shells. Desaguliers could think of no one better than Sloane to give advice to the man. He suggests that Sloane might enlarge his personal collection of shells if he helps. Desaguliers was the son of French Huguenots who quit France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685). He was a natural philosopher and engineer, became Sir Isaac Newton’s pupil, was a proponent of Newtonianism, and performed lectures and experiments at the Royal Society (Patricia Fara, Desaguliers, John Theophilus (16831744), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2009 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/7539, accessed 12 July 2013]).