Subject: Re: [HM] OED seeks origin of term "marquois scale"
From: Julio Gonzalez Cabillon (jgc@adinet.com.uy)
Date: Fri Feb 25 2000 - 21:40:39 EST
At 08:48 01/02/00 +0000, Jeff Miller typed:
|
| I received the following e-mail and I will put this on my math words page,
| but I hope it's also OK for me to pass it along to readers of this mailing
| list. Please copy any replies to Mark Dunn, as I do not know that he
| subscribes to this list.
|
| ====
|
| Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2000 09:12:03 GMT
| From: mdunn@oup.co.uk (Mark Dunn)
| To: JeffM@sanctum.com
| Subject: Maths and the OED
|
| Dear Dr Miller,
|
| Would it be possible for me to place an appeal on your web site on behalf
| of the OED? We're trying to determine the origin of an old drawing
| instrument called the 'marquois scale', which was used in the 18th and
| 19th centuries for drawing parallel lines and perpendiculars.
|
| It looks as though it was named after the inventor, Marquois, who
| advertised the scales for sale in 1783, but we cannot trace this person.
| Perhaps a reader of your site might be able to provide some information.
|
| The advertisement, which is our earliest example of this term, appeared in
| January 1783 in the Morning Herald, and runs as follows:
|
| "Marquois' Parallel Scales, for Drawing all Kind of Plans... Sold by the
| Inventor, at his Military and naval Academy, Charing-Cross, the corner of
| St. Martin's lane."
|
| The 'Military Academy' was probably just a small private school.
|
| The term appears in various catalogues and treatises on mathematical
| instruments in the 19th-century, but has now disappeared from use. It is
| possible that 'marquois' comes from an old French name for a kind of
| tailor's ruler, but the wording of the advertisement makes it reasonably
| clear that it is a personal name.
|
| If any of your readers can shed some light on this mystery, we would be
| very grateful.
|
| Yours,
|
| Mark Dunn,
|
| Senior Editor, New OED
|
The instrument referred to above [called "Marquois scale"] was conceived by
Thomas Marquois, who run his institution [= a military and naval academy]
established in 1762, in Norlands, two miles from London.
Julio Gonzalez Cabillon
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