Account of a comet
A 1781 Philosophical Transactions paper by astronomer William Herschel, with plates by engraver James Basire, describing the telescope-mounted observation that led to the discovery of Uranus, written for the Royal Society of London. The pictures are precise copperplate engravings of instrument parts, labelled with letters A to E and Fig. I to IV, and a cropped plate of a circular dial with graduated rings and a sliding arm; a designer could take their dense hatching and tidy technical lettering as a model for scientific diagrams. The fourth image is an unrelated woodcut of a seated figure with an attendant at a table.
