| Description | Bundle of sixty-nine letters to James Watt, from Professor Joseph Black.
There is no bundle label or wrapper.
The letters are numbered in red ink; except four, which have no number.
They were not numbered in strict chronological order.
They have now been arranged in chronological order and renumbered.
Nos. 64 - 68 [old nos. 1 to 5] are copy letters from James Watt to Dr Black, Mr Magellan etc. These have been listed at the end of the sequence.
The correspondent's name and the date has been written on the letter by James Watt except for letters 63 - 69 [old nos. 1 to 7],where dockets and summaries have been written by James Watt jr. Most of the letters have no summary on the docket.
Any summary in square brackets has given by the cataloguer.
Joseph Black consistently reversed the letters i and e in such words as friend, field etc. He therefore spelled Heathfield as Heathfeild. The correct spelling has been given in the list below.
Many of these letters have been transcribed for the book Partners in Science, eds. Eric Robinson and Douglas McKie, (1970). The number of the published letter is given below at the end of the docket, as, for example, (Partners no.6). |