{"id":15296,"date":"2013-04-19T07:38:42","date_gmt":"2013-04-19T15:38:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wpmu.library.oregonstate.edu\/osu_archives\/?p=15296"},"modified":"2013-04-19T07:38:42","modified_gmt":"2013-04-19T15:38:42","slug":"friday-feature-sir-hugh-plats-the-jewel-house-of-art-and-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/2013\/04\/19\/friday-feature-sir-hugh-plats-the-jewel-house-of-art-and-nature\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday Feature: Sir Hugh Plat&#8217;s The Jewel House of Art and Nature"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Special Collections and Archives Research Center recently acquired an edition of Sir Hugh Plat&#8217;s\u00a0<em>The Jewel House of Art and Nature<\/em>, published in London in 1653.<\/p>\n\n<p>This collection of \u201cdiverse new and conceited Experiments\u201d compiles recipes, household hints, and practical directions on an impressive variety of useful topics, including: \u201chow to write a letter secretly,\u201d \u201chow to walk safely upon a high scaffold with danger of falling,\u201d \u201cto dry gun-powder without danger of fire,\u201d \u201cto help a Chimnie that is on fire presently,\u201d \u201cto prevent drunkenesse,\u201d and \u201cto help Venison that is tainted.\u201d Mixed in among these trinkets are short treatises on \u201cthe Art of Memory,\u201d \u201cthe Art of Molding and Casting,\u201d a philosophical treatise on soil and marl, and even alchemical experiments. Intended to appeal to an audience as diverse as its contents, the book contains advices useful to travelers, farmers, housewives, soldiers, cooks, merchants, apothecaries, builders, distillers, and brewers, or indeed anyone who had \u201ceither wit, or will, to apply them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Plat frequently credits the source of his knowledge on these topics. Usually personal acquaintances, these range from seamen who shared various pieces of useful knowledge learned overseas, to clerics and barbers, to laborers and tradesmen.<\/p>\n<p>Plat\u2019s eclectic compilation provides a fascinating glimpse of the daily needs, desires, and concerns of people living and working in the mid-seventeenth century. It has an important place in the history of science, as it reflects what Deborah Harkness has called \u201cvernacular science\u201d\u2014developments in engineering, chemistry, nutrition, medicine, botany, agricultural science, and physics as achieved by the common people as they \u00a0experimented and progressed within these areas.\u00a0<em>The Jewel House of Art and Nature<\/em>\u00a0joins other examples of this democratic genre in our rare book collections dating from the 16<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0to the 20<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0centuries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Special Collections and Archives Research Center recently acquired an edition of Sir Hugh Plat&#8217;s\u00a0The Jewel House of Art and Nature, published in London in 1653. This collection of \u201cdiverse new and conceited Experiments\u201d compiles recipes, household hints, and practical directions on an impressive variety of useful topics, including: \u201chow to write a letter secretly,\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6069,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1344836,233190],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-friday-feature","category-main-page"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6069"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15296\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}