1. Craufurd , T. 1808. History of the University of Edinburgh 1580–1646 92–92. Edinburgh I believe that ‘will’ was used to indicate wish, instruction or desire, rather than testament. Certainly there is no mention of the bequest of a quadrant to the University in Napier's Will: see M. Napier,Memoirs of John Napier of Merchiston(Edinburgh, 1834), pp. 427–31.
2. Wood , M. , ed. 1931. Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh 1604–1626 225–225. Edinburgh It should be noted that this passage was transcribed from the Town records in 1833 at the instigation of the then Professor of Natural Philosophy, J. D. Forbes, seeDocuments Book, Natural Philosophy Museum(fol. i), now housed with the surviving apparatus in the National Museums of Scotland. The text is also reprinted in Horsburgh (footnote 2), 2.
3. Britain's First Observatory?
4. Science and Art Department of the Committee of Council on Education. 1876. Catalogue of the Special Loan Collection of Scientific Apparatus at the South Kensington Museum MDCCCLXXVI, third edition 398–398. London See also Horsburgh (footnote 2), 2. The ‘Napier Quadrant' is now in the National Museums of Scotland. While a rare survival, it is quite typical of astronomical quadrants designed and made in Londonc.1700. It compares directly with that madec.1707 by John Rowley of London for Trinity College Cambridge—see J. Harris,Lexicon Technicum, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, 2 vols (London 1704–1710), II,addendum. Quite how this particular instrument came into the possession of the Department of Natural Philosophy at the University is uncertain. I hazard thesuppositionthat it may be the ‘brass quadrant, 3-foot radius, that cost at least forty guineas when it was new’, presented to the fledgling Philosophical Society of Edinburgh by Lord Hope in 1737; seeThe Collected Letters of Colin MacLaurin, edited by S. Mills (Nantwich, 1982), p. 74.