Letter 3669

Savery has undertaken several experiments. He was encouraged by Dr Huxham to acquaint Dr Jurin of them. As Jurin is no longer secretary, Savery did not know who to contact. He asks Sloane whether the Royal Society would be interested in publishing an account of the experiments. ‘If a Description of an Engine wch will render ye Change of ye variation of ye Horizontal Needle dayly visible, wou’d be acceptable, a Line from one of ye Secretary’s’ would be helpful. Savery was a friend of the Reverend John Enty. Sloane might also have heard of Captain Savery, another of Savery’s cousins called Germain, or perhaps Dr Savery of Marlborough Street. Servington Savery (c.1670-c.1744) was a natural philosopher. He authored a paper on magnetism that was published in the Philosophical Transactions in 1730. Savery also designed a telescope, which George Graham used to measure the sun’s diameter. He spent his career in Shilston, near Modbury, Devon (Patricia Fara, ‘Savery, Servington (c.1670–c.1744)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/53780, accessed 18 Aug 2014]).