BOYDELL, James. ~ The Ullage Cask Gauger, comprised in a Series of Tables, calculated with the utmost Accuracy and Perspicuity. Whereby the Ullage Contents of any Cask, from five to one hundred and sixty Gallons (inclusive) is at one View exactly and expeditiously known: and likewise the Ullage Contents of all other Casks, however large. As also the Foot or Sediment in Oil Casks, are alike correctly ascertained. Compiled after the most approved Method made use of by the Excise. By James Boydell, late Wine Merchant. London: Printed by R. and H. Causton, Finch-Lane, for the Author, and sold by him at No. 2, Cooper’s-Row, Crutched-Friars, and by all Booksellers in Town and Country, 1784.
8vo (225 × 140 mm), pp. xiii, [3], 143, [1], including the inserted ‘To the Public’ leaf after prelims, author’s signature on verso of p. xiii. Contemporary sprinkled sheep with red morocco title label to upper cover (partly defective). Worn, with loss to leather at upper forecorner of lower cover, joints cracked but cords secure. An unsophisticated copy.
First edition. Boydell’s tables allowed dealers in beer, wine and spirits to accurately assess the true contents of part-used casks through measurement of ullage (the empty portion of any barrel) — an essential calculation in tax and excise assessments. Several new editions were advertised in the nineteenth-century but all editions are rare.
The author was probably the same Boydell who described himself as ‘ships-husband’ on the title of his The Merchant Freighter’s and Captains of Ships Assistant - Being Tables Calculated with the Greatest Accuracy (‘London: printed for the author... and to be had at Lloyd's, the New York, the New England, the Jamaica, and the Pensylvania coffee-houses; and of any bookseller in Great Britain, 1764). ESTC: Leeds, NLS, Glasgow, St Andrews, U Kentucky, UVA, Saint Olaf (MN) and State Library of Tasmania.