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Cardiffe Castle was found to be in the large collection of Warwick Smith drawings in the Library; it was dated 1787. Drawings of Tintern1 and Llanthony were found listed in the Catalogue of Views in Wales by Smith as exhibited at the Galleries of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours, 1928. They were dated either 1786 or 1788. This made the earliest possible date at least five years later. The Pont-y-Pridd occurs as an aquatint by Alken after Smith in Sotheby's A Tour through Parts of Wales (2nd edition, 1794) so, too, does another drawing in the volume, The Fall of Melincourt (opp. p. 67), though Miss Sotheby does not acknowledge the latter as being after Smith. No notice can, however, be taken of this date (1794), because for these two drawings Miss Sotheby may have used Smith's originals (see previous note), and of these I have been unable to find the date. The problem now, in the absence of information as to the date of Miss Sotheby's death, was to ascertain the latest possible date. For this, recourse was had to the make-up of the volume. The manuscript was written on paper all of which had a water- mark much used in the last quarter of the eighteenth century the interleaves, however, on which the drawings were pasted, and the blank leaves at the beginning and end of the volume, were all of different paper, and some of it had the water mark 1799. This indicated that the volume was made up and bound (by J. Mintorn of Bristol in a con- temporary binding of full imitation red morocco) about 1799. Thus the date of the drawings was limited to a period of twelve years-1787 to 1799. H. N. JERMAN. THE JOHN HERBERT JAMES BEQUEST2 The late John Herbert James, The Cottage, Vaynor, near Merthyr Tydfil, who died on March 10, 1939, bequeathed to the National Museum of Wales a valuable collection of books, which the Museum has since placed on deposit in the National Library. These books, with one exception, were not specified, but Mr. James had indicated his wish that all volumes relating to astrolabes, astrology, and ancient astronomy, and all books by or relating to Christopher Columbus and Galileo, should be selected. The collection which has come to the National Library consists of nearly one hundred volumes. Apart from well-known works on the astrolabe, such as those by Geoffrey Chaucer3 and E. G. Ravenstein, the volumes selected include works by Christopher Clavius published from 1593 to 1612, copies of Trattato deW uso et della fabbrica dell' Astrolabio by Egnatio Danti (Florence, 1569), De astrolabo catholico liber by Reinerus Gemma (edited by C. Gemma, Antwerp, 1556), Elucidatio fabric ae ususque Astrolabii by Johann Stoeffler (Paris, 1553), and the rare Tractatus de compositione Astrolabii Messehaleth (Strasburg, 1512). The books on astronomy include the works of Petrus Apianus (1532 and 1548), Jean Sylvain Bailly (1785), Petrus Beausardus (1557), Nicolas Copernicus [1566], and 1 Two, dated July, 1788, are now in the Library one is reproduced facing p. 157 of this number of the Journal. Smith's manuscript note on this drawing reads as follows The Ruins of Tintern Abbey-On the approach, from The Village of Tintern. Few Views of this Ruin are more picturesque than this, but is interrupted by a mean Modern House, which has been built close to it. Monmouthshire. July 1788." 2 For an appreciation of "J. H. J." by Dr. Thomas Jones, C.H., see The Western Mail, March 14, 1939. 3 The National Library has two manuscripts (Peniarth MS. 359 and N.L.W. MS. 3567) of Chaucer's treatise on the astrolabe. — Editor,