Huntington Research | Science and Technology Resources

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Burndy Library

Research Materials in Science and Technology

Medieval: The Library has especially strong holdings of scientific books published in the 15th century. (All together, its incunabula total about 5,400 titles, a collection second in size in this country only to that of the Library of Congress.) At the core of this scientific collection are books pertinent to the study of medicine, more than 600 titles, most of which are listed by Herman R. Mead in the first issue of the Huntington Library Bulletin (1931). Examples of landmark books in science are the first edition of Euclid, Elementa geometriae (1482); the Ulm Ptolemy (1482); the Aldine Aristotle (1495-98); and the first (1469) and the Jenson (1472) editions of Pliny, Historia naturalis. The 390 medieval and renaissance manuscript volumes in the Library include fourteen volumes--100 texts, notes, and short treatises--which concern science. Among them are manuscripts of Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, prepared in the 13th century in England; Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum, translated into French and copied in France in the early 15th century; and Aristotle, De animalibus Book 18, translated into Latin by Michael Scot and copied in Italy in the late 13th century. A two-volume catalog of medieval and renaissance manuscripts is now available.

16th and 17th centuries: The Library has one of the world's principal collections of books printed in the British Isles before 1701; it also has some 5,000 continental books of the 16th and 17th centuries. Among these are many scientific, medical, and technical books, including strong holdings of Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, Martin Lister, Athanasius Kircher, Gaspar Schott, Nicolaus Steno, Oronce Finé, Petrus Apianus, and many others. Notable books include the 1543 Vesalius and the 1545 Geminus, the 1521 Vitruvius, the De magnete (1600) of William Gilbert, the 1579 Besson and the 1588 Ramelli, and a long run of the Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society (1667-1857). Together, the holdings of the Williams Andrews Clark Memorial Library in Los Angeles (12 miles distant) and the Huntington's collection of early British science are unsurpassed outside London.

18th century: In addition to Newton and Newtoniana, the Library has strong holdings of Joseph Priestley and many other British scientists and philosophers, as well as an extensive collection of writings about British agriculture by Arthur Young, Sir John Sinclair, and others. Among the technical books are the Machines et inventions of the French academy (1735-77), the great Encyclopédie of Diderot and D'Alembert, and Leupold's Theatrum machinarum (1724-39), together with a 10-volume unpublished English translation of Leupold. Manuscript material about agriculture and technology can be found in British family archives, including the Loudoun, Hastings, and Stowe papers, which total several hundred thousand manuscript pieces. Among the continental scientists represented by substantial holdings are Spallanzani, Blumenbach, and Senebier.

Chemistry and geology: The Library has the most extensive collection west of Wisconsin concerning chemistry during the 18th and early 19th centuries. It has strong holdings of Lavoisier, Fourcroy, Guyton de Morveau, Kirwan, Nicholson, Davy, Chaptal, Berthollet, Berzelius, Macquer, Bergman, and Liebig (in addition to Priestley and many others), as well as a good collection of alchemical and early chemical works. In geology the Library has nearly all of the most important texts and geological maps from the period of the great revolution in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, including the essential works of Agassiz, Cuvier, Haüy, Hutton, Playfair, William Smith, Greenough, and Lyell, as well as the pioneer geologists in the United States. In addition, it has extensive manuscript and printed materials on mining in California and other parts of the American west.

Botany and zoology: Many important botanical works are in the Library, ranging from Theophrastus (1483) and Albertus Magnus (1517) to Linné's Hortus Cliffortianus (1773) and works by Ray, Camerarius, Sprengel, and Schleiden. There is an extensive collection of early herbals. Zoological books include Hooke, Micrographia (1665); Borelli, De motu animalium (1680-81); and Ledermueller, Mikroskopische Gemueths-und Augen-Ergoetzung (1760-63), together with numerous works by Redi, Vallisnieri, Leeuwenhoek, Swammerdam, Joblot, Trembley, Lamarck, Cuvier, Baer, and Schwann, and a long run of the Comptes rendus. The Library has a fine set of Audubon's Birds of America and other early American zoological works.

American medicine through the Civil War period: Among the Library's major holdings of materials (manuscript and printed) concerning the American Civil War is an important collection of medical works. In recent years several hundred titles of 18th and early 19th-century American medical books have been added to this collection.

Astronomy and mathematics: The astronomy collection of the Library has recently been augmented by the deposit of the Archives of the Carnegie Observatories and its collection of rare books. The archives contain the papers of the directors of the Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories (George E. Hale, Walter S. Adams, and Ira S. Bowen) as well as the papers of some of the staff astronomers, for example, F.H. Seares, A.H. Joy, W. Baade, and F.G. Pease. These papers are supplemented by the Library's collection of the Edwin P. Hubble Papers and the California Institute of Technology's collection of George E. Hale's personal papers and the papers of other notable scientists who worked at Caltech. Together with the Caltech library, the Library now has a strong collection of astronomy books up to the 19th century. Notable are works by Bevis, Delambre, Doppler, Halley, J.F.W. Herschel, Hevelius, and Schroeter. Mathematicians well represented include Apollonius of Perga, Napier, Euler, the Bernoulli family, La Place, La Grange, La Croix, Gauss, Boole, and Babbage.

Electricity: The first edition of Franklin's Experiments and observations on electricity (1751-54) is but one of many notable works in the early history of electricity. Also in the collection are works by Taisnier, Gilbert, Musschenbroek, Beccaria, Galvani, Volta, Ampere, Oersted, Ohm, and Faraday.

Civil Engineering: A summary of the Huntington's civil engineering materials can be found by clicking here.

Transportation: Strong holdings of printed and manuscript materials are available for studying the history of transportation in the 19th and early 20th centuries, especially British and American railroads (including the Merrill collection of streamlining), sea transportation, (including the John Haskell Kemble Collection), and pre-Wright brothers aeronautics.

Classics of science: The Library has collected materials for research value, and not for their presence on lists of high-spots in science. Even so, the Library and its neighbors (Caltech and Clark libraries) own about 90% of the works published between 1455 and 1850 which are listed by Herbert McLean Evans, Exhibition of first editions of epochal achievements in the history of science (1934), Bern Dibner, Heralds of science (1955, rev. ed. 1980), and Harrison D. Horblit, One hundred books famous in science (1958). They are also strong in the scientific works from this period which are listed in Printing and the mind of man (1967).

Science fiction: An adjunct to history of science holdings is a collection of correspondence and printed works by several modern British and American authors of science fiction. Among them are Brian Aldiss, Isaac Asimov, Frederic Pohl, Robert Silverberg, and Clifford Simak.

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