“This is just a baby step towards bringing our archives to a wider public”

The Royal Society’s celebration of its 350th anniversary continues with the Guardian noting that more wondrous things have been made available online – stunning 3D facsimiles of maunscripts from their archive. The Guardian mentions Isaac Newton’s early biographer and friend – they met in 1718 – William Stukeley’s Memoirs of Newton’s Life, source of the apocryphal tale of the falling apple. Among the other manuscripts online is, another friend and correspondent of Newton’s, philosopher John Locke’s 1681 draft constitutional document for one of the American colonies, the Carolinas. Additionally, there’s an equally wondrous separate presentation [Shockwave file] of long-term antagonist of Newton, as noted here, the ingenious Mr Hooke’s recently discovered handwritten minutes of early meetings of the Society along with extracts from the Society’s Journal – they’ve even provided a searchable transcript of the Hooke Folio.

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