| Description | There are six notebooks, a textbook and several manuscript volumes which have been attributed to John Watt, teacher and surveyor, on account of their content. They may also have been used by James Watt and perhaps James Watt of Greenock in surveying work.
The first notebook is dated 1722 -1723 on the cover, but the dates inside cover the longer period of 1719 to 1729. It consists of seven small manuscript notebooks bound together with string, each on a different subject: 1) a treatise on dialling; 2) a treatise on fortification; 3) a treatise on mechanics; 4) an ‘Esai de choc de corps’; 5) three treatises on geography; 6) two treatises on navigation and 7) some fragments on algebra and dialling etc. It is signed by both John Watt and John Murdoch.
The second notebook consists of two small booklets in one cover and contains 1) an introduction to book-keeping, dated 1724, [see MS 3219/2/23 for a later version of this] and 2) an introduction to ‘the Grounds of music’, together with writings from the Bible.The latter is in an older hand.
The third notebook, dated 1730, has an introduction to book-keeping with a new scheme of recording business, by John Watt. It gives a general explanation of the Italian scheme of book keeping when applied to merchant affairs.
The fourth, undated, notebook, gives a description and use of the planetary system etc. This is in a different hand to notebook MS 3219/2/23.
The fifth notebook, c. 1720, is about the measuring of timber, especially for the construction of ships, and the sixth notebook, c. 1725, includes pages of notes on mathematics, military problems, astronomy, theory of tides, surveying, geometry etc. and a piece of paper printed in Chinese.
The printed textbook has notes on both front and back endpapers. There is a recipe for making red or black wax, and a page recording family events. On the opposite page, James Watt jr. has written: ‘ The Memorandums on the annexed Page are in the handwriting of my Grand uncle John Watt and relate to himself and family. He died 1737. James Watt. Heathfield. 1820.’ Blank pages at the end of the volume have been used to record cash memoranda for 1718 to 1724.
There are several manuscript volumes or part volumes on mathematics and navigation. One, an instruction book on navigation, has been signed in two places by Thomas Watt, but has been listed here as it seems to form part of a group of instruction booklets which all appear to be of a similar style and period. It may have been handed on to John Watt by his father. Only one of these has a date given, of 1732 . |