This 1826 South African Public Library supplementary catalogue is titled Supplement Sciences and Arts and compiled by Alexander Johnstone Jardine, who was librarian between 1824 and 1845. This supplement is organised into twenty-five sub-sections and has an index and contents page appended to it. The works listed in this catalogue indicates the SAPL wished to establish itself as a first-class reference library for the sciences, purchasing a number of influential late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century works across a number of disciplines. These include Linnaeus’s System of Nature, Buffon’s Natural history, Cuvier’s Theory of the earth and Humphrey Davy’s Elements of agricultural chemistry. The library also began to subscribe to the Transactions of the Royal Society, maintaining Cape Town’s connection to metropolitan scientific institutions. Of the 146 titles listed, 56 pertain to the animal and plant sciences and 47 are about mathematics, astronomy or mechanics. No imaginative works are included in this supplement and only five voyages and travels were added at this time.
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