8vo. Bound by Remnant & Edmonds of London in decoratively blind-stamped and gilt-lettered brown cloth, glazed yellow endpapers, with the binder’s ticket to the rear pastedown; vi, [7]-26, [1]pp. + 51 engraved plates printed on the recto on verso, [2]pp. publisher’s adverts bound in between the f.f.e.p. and the half-title; the extremities of the boards very lightly worn in a few places, one very small hole to the cloth of the joint of the upper board, light spotting to the first few leaves, otherwise a bright, clean copy.

Provenance: The Architectural & Archæological Society of St. Albans, Hertfordshire, with its engraved, armorial bookplate to the front pastedown.

An elaboration of the proposition first expressed in Billing’s earlier publication The Infinity of Geometric Design (1849), ‘that upon any diagram an endless combination of designs may be produced.’ The ‘diagram’ in the present work is a large circle within which are three smaller circles, resulting in a large number of tracery patterns, described by the author as ‘elementary experiments’. In each case Robert Branston’s woodblock engravings show the finished design and its geometrical basis.

Stock number: 1469