This work describes the changing language and rhetoric of English-speaking scientists across the 17th-20th centuries. It should be of interest to scholars of rhetoric, composition, communication and applied linguistics, as well as historians, sociolinguists and education researchers. It attempts to combine independent analytical methodologies in the description of scientific writing across time, provides a "wide angle" perspective that examines the evolution of scientific writing from 1675 to 1975, and treats scientific research writing across a broad range of modern sciences including astronomy, biology, physics, chemistry, physiology and geology.