Book, A Treatise on Special or Elementary Geometry, PART III

Description:

This book is a first edition of 1872. Olney published two versions of this textbook; this one is a "university edition" because it contains Part III (omitted from the "school edition"), with propositions for students to prove, a treatise on applications of algebra to geometry, and an introduction to "modern geometry" (finding maxima and minima, isoperimetry, and other geometric approaches to calculus problems which are common in eighteenth-century geometry textbooks). Parts I and II were to help the student prepare for college entrance examinations. Part IV covered plane and spherical trigonometry. The publisher, Sheldon & Company, claimed that Olney's textbooks could be used by all grades for all purposes. Olney's proofs are written in less formal language than most geometry textbooks from the time period, and he does not appear to follow the structure of either Euclid or Legendre. There is a partial paper jacket on the book, with Jacob Foster Schmeltzer's name stamped on the front. The book is also signed on page 75 of the trigonometry tables, "Sevtenby Snawwill" [?] of Champaign, Illinois. A page from the front matter has been torn out. There are various pencil marks throughout, with the sections of Part III that were covered in class denoted with a check mark. Pieces of tissue paper lie between pages 282-283 and 258-259. Three pieces of notepaper found in this book are stored in a separate envelope: a sketch of trees, hexagon formulas, and a computation of triangle area. These have sub-index numbers .1, .2, and .3.