Lectures on select subjects in mechanics, hydrostatics, hydraulics, pneumatics and optics : with the use of the globes, the art of dialing and the calculation of the mean times of new and full moons and eclipses
James Ferguson's 1776 lecture book on mechanics, hydrostatics, pneumatics and optics, printed for W. Strahan, was written as a teaching text for popular audiences in eighteenth-century Britain. Its copper-plate pictures are precise line diagrams of apparatus such as levers, pulleys, pendulum-like balances, lenses, prisms and a gimbal-mounted sphere, each labelled with letters and figure numbers for keyed reference in the text. A designer might draw on their clean, technical linework and the way lettered callouts structure a diagram.
