UNKNOW MANUSCRIPTS AND NOTES OF JAN SNIADECKI IN THE HISTORICAL ARCHIVE IN VILNIUS ( Nieznane rekopisy i notatki Jana Sniadeckiego w Archiwum Historycznym Wilna)

The author describes a collection of Jan Sniadecki's (1756-1830) unknown manuscripts which he has found in the Historical Archives in Vilnius. The collection contains six volumes of manuscripts, reflecting a wide range of Sniadecki's scientific interests, including philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, history and literature. After the closure of the Vilnius University in 1832, the manuscripts were kept in Russian and then in Soviet archives until the 1990s, when they returned to Vilnius. Some documents were printed by Sniadecki himself, but many of them have remained unknown. The present author has edited some of Sniadecki's manuscripts: 'About telescopes' (1788), written after his visit to London in 1787, and a series of lectures devoted to 'The role of mathematics in physical sciences', presented at the Cracow University between 1784 and 1785. The scientific work 'About telescopes' has been unknown. It contains the results of latest dioptric research in that period. The lectures on the role of mathematics in physics were considered until recently to have been lost.