I didn't know it when I found this, but its maker, Charles Rudy (b. 1837)—the super bright and very entrepreneurial youngest child of Durs Rudy (a Swiss immigrant who kept a store and hotel, became an organist and was also, interestingly, a talented fraktur artist)—would become quite a notable figure not just in Lehigh Valley, PA, where he grew up, but in Paris, where he established a school that became a hub for international nobility and the sons and daughters of many of Paris’ most fashionable citizens. Rudy founded the early iteration of his “Schnecksville Academy” in PA c. 1856, at the age of 19, where to 36 students he taught all the courses, including music and drama! I believe this 1854 notebook—titled “A Key to Common Trigonometry & Surveying Demonstrated & Draughted by Charles Rudy” (and including a series of wonderful drawings relating to astronomy, tides, etc. at the end)—was likely an early draft of a teaching notebook. There is tons more about Rudy’s fascinating life online, including a great long article in Lehigh Valley’s Morning Call. (click link to read.)
The notebook, which floats inside a beautiful old leather cover, includes 48 pages total—26 of them at front filled mostly on one side with trigonometry and surveying exercises including beautiful diagrams, then 10 blank, then 12 pages at the end with suns and moons and ebbs and tides and a few misc. sketches.
The leather cover measures 11 x 8 11/16". The notebook itself: 10" x 8". All writing and drawings in ink with the exception of 2 pages of pencil drawings (as pictured.) Photographs document the more interesting math & surveying pages, and all of the astronomical and misc. drawings at the end of the book.
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