JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
I have seen many thousands of pages in the populist hard-science journal, Nature, from its opening volume in 1869 through WWII–at least those are what I have in the studiom ready for a browse. (In recent years even a good share of the titles in Nature are mysterious to me–I’m more able to do cover-to-cover grazing before WWII.) In any event I have notice many times certain poetical phrasing in the ads of the later issues (adverts coming into being a few decades after the first by-subscription issues) and I’m a little sorry now for not saving or noting them. This ad for lab specs is a decent example: it is a nicely designed bit, and small (less than two square inches int he original issue in 1899), and has the nice turn, “render the light soft and cool”, a line that could be used anywhere. But here it is, selling specs by the redoubtable Negretti & Zambra.
