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BORLASE, William (Cornish antiquarian, naturalist and mineralogist, 1696-1772). Autograph letter signed to Richard Penneck (his nephew, Keeper of the British Museum Reading Room), Ludgvan, 24 October 1761, and an autograph letter signed to Emanuel Mendes da Costa (naturalist and mineralogist, Clerk to the Royal Society), Ludgvan, 7 October 1765, together 3 pages, 4to, integral blank leaf (letter to Penneck with slight discolouration to inner margin, letter to da Costa with slight discolouration to upper margin, small splits at folds and on blank leaf and tape repairs to verso, not affecting text); [with:] an autograph manuscript signed by Borlase, letters to Borlase from his son William and bookseller William Sandby, and a related document, 1745-1771, together 6 pages, 4to, and 2 pages, folio.
Two letters on mineralogy by the author of the Natural History of Cornwall. In the letter to Penneck, Borlase hopes that Lord Tylney [presumably John, Earl Tylney of Castlemaine] has received the Cornish crystals he sent him for his grotto, promising to send more 'mundics' (pyrite) and Cornish diamonds, and recalling that 'Mr Pope [Alexander Pope, the poet], of the small mundics which I sent him made Inscriptions', and describing the other possible uses of the crystals in ornamentation; the letter to da Costa discusses 'a sample of Copper...the only one I ever saw in Cornwall; tis now in the Oxford Museum [the Ashmolean]'; going on to discuss two points of his theory of metals, first 'that Metals were created in a certain determinate quantity', and secondly 'that Metals do not grow in any sense but by approximation of parts'. The autograph document signed by Borlase, 1771, is a submission on the state of the roads in his parish of Ludgvan; the letter from his son, Cambridge, 1745, comments scornfully on the knowledge and collection of the 'Professor of Fossils' there; Sandby writes in 1755 about uncollected subscribers' copies of the Antiquities of Cornwall; a document of 1768 testifies to Borlase's orthodoxy in his office as Rector of Ludgvan.
William Borlase was one of the earliest Cornish antiquarians and naturalists. His important mineralogical collection, after depletions to furnish the grottoes of Pope and others, passed to the Ashmolean Museum. The largest collections of his letters and papers are in the Penzance Library and the Royal Institution of Cornwall; the present letters are the only ones listed in P.A.S. Pool, William Borlase (1986), as being in private hands. (6)
Two letters on mineralogy by the author of the Natural History of Cornwall. In the letter to Penneck, Borlase hopes that Lord Tylney [presumably John, Earl Tylney of Castlemaine] has received the Cornish crystals he sent him for his grotto, promising to send more 'mundics' (pyrite) and Cornish diamonds, and recalling that 'M
William Borlase was one of the earliest Cornish antiquarians and naturalists. His important mineralogical collection, after depletions to furnish the grottoes of Pope and others, passed to the Ashmolean Museum. The largest collections of his letters and papers are in the Penzance Library and the Royal Institution of Cornwall; the present letters are the only ones listed in P.A.S. Pool, William Borlase (1986), as being in private hands. (6)
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