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Wittemberg, Vidua Scheffler, 1753. 4to. Contemporary full calf with five raised bands to richly gilt spine. Edges of boards blindtooled. Boards slightly warped and with lsigns of wear. Internally very nice and clean with only a few scattered brownspots. A nice, tight, clean, and completely unrestored copy. Title-page printed in red and black. (4), 18, (6), CCLII, (2) pp. + two folded engraved plates. The exceedingly rare first edition of the first published biography of Aldus Manutius including "the first real attempt at an Aldine bibliography" (Grolier, Aldus). This legendary publication constitutes not only the earliest but also one of the most important sources on Aldus and his publications. Written by Christian Gottlieb Unger (1671-1719), presumably in the early 1700'ies, it circulated in manuscript-form for decades until 1753, when Samuel Luther Geret, German theologian, lawyer and politician, took upon himself to edit the manuscript and have it published. Renouard mentions a 1729-edition, but this is a ghost (See "Grolier, Aldus Manutius: No. 135").Grolier, Aldus Manutius: No. 135.Renouard, pp. iv-v.

Stockholm, L.J. Hiertas Förlagsexpedition, 1871. 8vo. Contemporary half calf with gilt lettering to spine and gilt ornamentation forming five compartments. Hindges with a few worm holes, back hindges mostly affected, but binding still tight and firmly attached to book block. Previous owner's stamp to pasted down front end-paper. Internally extraordinarily fine and clean. XI, (1), 420 pp. + plate with genealogical tree inserted between p. 96 and p. 97. The rare first Swedish translation, also being the first in Scandinavia, of Darwin's Origin of Species. Initially the work mainly received attention from religious institutions who (also compared to most other countries) were fiercely against Darwin's theory. Freeman wrongly lists this first Swedish edition as appearing in 1869, he also does not register the plate.

Amsterdam, 1765. 4to. Contemporary vellum spine with marbled paper covered boards. Simple and worn, but tight and functional. Split in the inner stitching, but leaves still attached. With brownspotting and signs of use throughout. Small tears to some blank margins. Two leaves more worn to the lower margin, just touching one engraving and a line of text, resulting in very minor loss. Titl-page within woodcut printed border. Illustrated throughout with 14 large (7,7 x 11,5 cm) woodcut illustrations and 13 large illustrated woodcut initials (ca 3,2 x 3,2 cm). 33 ff. In spite of its signs of frequent use, the book is in very good condition for this type of work, which is usually in extremely poor condition. A beautifully illustrated and very rare 18th century Haggadah, setting forth the order of the Passover Seder; fully complete, with 14 large woodcut illustrations inspired by the "Amsterdam Haggadah" from 1695. The commentary by Rav Leone Modena found in this Hagadah, the famous “Tzeli Esh,” is an abbreviation of Don Isaac Abrabanel’s voluminous commentary “Zevach Pesach” first published during the author’s lifetime in Constantinople in 1505. The translation of the “Tzeli Esh” into Yiddish is by Solomon Zalman ben Moses Raphael London (1661-1748), author and translator, who was active between 1709 and 1735. Leon de Modena (or Yehuda Aryeh Mi-Modena) (1571-1648) is considered the most famous Venetian Rabbi of the 17th century. He was a Jewish scholar born in Venice, into a family of migrants from France, after the French expulsion of Jews. He was well respected, but his reputation within traditional Judaism suffered both due to his criticism of emerging sects within Judaism, but also because of his addiction to gambling and seeming lack of stability. He is famous for his criticism of the mystical approach to Judaism and his attacks on the Kaballa, but his international fame mainly rests upon him being the interpreter of Judaism to the Christian world. He was the first since Josephus and Philo to write a Jewish text to non-Jewish readers (Historia de gli riti Hebraici, 1637), which was widely read by Christians and extremely influential. The editor Naftali Hertz ben Alexander Ziskind Levi Rofe of Emden “set up his press in Amsterdam in 1726. He complemented his printing equipment with that purchased from the Isaac Templo press after it was closed down. He was a physician by profession, as evidenced by his moniker Rofe. He was granted title of doctor of medicine from the University of Harderwijk in 1716. He pursued his medical practice, as well as printing and bookselling. He was a member of a small group of Jewish intellectuals interested in scientific disputes. He tended to publish alone as well as in cooperation with others, but above all with his son-in-law Kosman ben Joseph Baruch, who was also involved in the book trade. Their cooperation lasted from 1742 to 1766, and resulted in many works being published.” (The Bezalel Narkiss Index of Jewish Art, The Center for Jewish Art)

S.-Peterburg, Izdanie redaktsii zhurnala "Znanie, 1871. 8vo. In recent half calf with four rasied bands and gilt lettering to spine. Soiling and damp stain to title-page. Light brownspotting throughout. (2), VII, (5), 439, (7) pp. The exceedingly rare first Russian translation of Darwin's 'Descent of Man' published only four months after the original English. The Russian publisher was eager to have a translation published, hence this early abridged edition - two other Russian translations followed later the same year - The present translation being the very first into any language. "The Descent of Man showed that the process of organic evolution, propelled by the struggle for existence and natural selection, applied to man no less than to the rest of the animal kingdom. It gave explicit recognition to the idea of the anthropoid origin of man. This claim surprised no one, for it was clearly hinted at in the great work of 1859 and was elaborated in Thomas Huxley's Man's Place in Nature and Vogt's Lectures on Man. Nor was it much of a surprise when three Russian translations of The Descent appeared within one year after the publication of the English original. Two general ideas represented the essence of The Descent: natural selection is not only behind the physical survival of man but also behind the evolution of cultural values; and the differences between animal and human behavior are differences of degree rather than of kind." (Darwin in Russian Thought) "The Expression helped lay the foundations for a scientific study of the psychological aspect of the evolution of species. The book appeared in a Russian translation only a few months after the publication of the English original. The paleontologist Vladimir Kovalevskii was the translator, and the embryologist Aleksandr Kovalevskii was in charge of editorial tasks. In 1874 Vladimir wrote to Darwin that nearly two thousand copies of the Russian translation were sold." " The Expression deals much more extensively with selected aspects of human and animal behavior than with general problems of evolutionary biology. The Russian reviewers were generally impressed with Darwin's descriptions and categorizations of animal behavior. The Journal of the Ministry of Public Education was unusually profuse in praising the book's content and writing style. The reviewer commended Darwin's impartiality and avoidance of "materialistic trappings." Even the adherents of spiritualism could read the book, he wrote, without the least discomfort. The reviewer thought that psychologists would benefit from the information the book presented on the "physiological" basis of behavior. Indeed, he recommended the book to all readers interested in the scientific foundations of human behavior. The liberal journal Knowledgewas equally laudatory. It noted that the book was eminently successful on two counts: it offered a "rational explanation" of many expressions of human emotions, and it integrated the study of animal and human behavior into the universal process of organic evolution. In fact, no educated person could afford to ignore it.N. P. Vagner, professor of zoology and comparative anatomy at St. Petersburg University, called The Expression a book with "great strengths and minor flaws." The volume reminded him of Darwin's previous works, which marked "turning points in the history of science." The strength of the book lay much more in its suggestion of new topics for comparative-psychological research than in a presentation of a theoretically and logically integrated system of scientific thought. Insufficient exploration of the physiological underpinnings of mental activities represented the book's major shortcoming" (Darwin in Russian Thought) In Russia Darwinism had a profound influence not only upon the different sciences, but also on philosophy, economic and political thought, and the great literature of the period. For instance, both Tolstoy and Dostoevsky referenced Darwin in their most important works, as did numerous other thinkers of the period.Like Strakhov, however, Dostoevsky, acknowledging the significance of the "Origin of Species", saw the dangers of the theory. In the same year as the publication of Rachinsky's translation, he lets the narrator in "Notes from Underground" (1864) launch his attack on Darwinism , beginning: "As soon as they prove you, for instance, that you are descended from a monkey, then it's no use scowling, you just have to accept it."In "Crime and Punishment" (two years later, 1866) the Darwinian overtones inherent in Raskolnikov's theory of the extraordinary man are unmistakable. He describes the mechanism of "natural selection," where, according to the laws of nature, by the crossing of races and types, a "genius" would eventually emerge. In general, Darwinian themes and Darwin's name occur in many contexts in a large number of Dostoevsky's works.'Descent of Man' was transted into Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Polish, Russian and Swedish in Darwin's lifetime. Freeman 1107.

Leipzig, Ambrosius Barth, 1916. 8vo. Uncut in the original printed wrappers. Light discolouration to margins of wrappers. Inner hinges with professional repairs. Small stamp (exlibris?) to lower part of title-page. Previous owner's name (Erik Broekmeyer) in contemporary hand to upper outer corner of title-page. A fine copy. 64 pp. First issue of the first edition in book form, being, not an offprint of the"Annalen der Physik" journal issue as often stated, but a separate edition of the paper, completely re-set and with significant changes and additions, including for the first time in print the "Einleitung" and the "Inhalt".The first issue is distinguished from the later reprints by the printing of "Sonderdruck aus dem "Annalen der Physik" Band 49, 1916", and "Druck von Metzger & Wittig in Leipzig. 314" to the verso of the title-page and "Metzger & Wittig, Leipzig" to the foot of the back wrapper. Furthermore, "This separate edition is printed on good, strong paper, the wrappers are of strong material too, and it is described now as 'the original edition' of this classic paper" (Weil). Einstein's seminal "General Theory of Relativity" has had an immense impact on all science, philosophy, and man's view of the world in general. Few other books of the 20th century can be said to have so basically altered the way that we view the world and our place in it. Determining space and time as being interwoven into a single continuum known as "space-time" and determining that there is no absolute space-time coordinate system - i.e. that there are no absolute positions in time and pace - established the fact that events that occur at the same time for one observer could occur at different times for another, i.e. all positions in space and time are relative. This general theory of relativity, here presented in its full exposition for the first time, in book form, is now a basic foundation for scientific thought."The theory of relativity has transformed astrophysics, and indeed the whole scientific outlook." (PMM)."Whereas Special Relativity had brought under one set of laws the electromagnetic world of Maxwell and Newtonian mechanics as far as they applied to bodies in uniform relative motion, The General Theory did the same thing for bodies with the accelerated relative motion epitomized in the acceleration of gravity. But first it had been necessary for Einstein to develop the true nature of gravity from his principle of equivalence...Basically, he proposed that gravity was a function of matter itself and that its effects were transmitted between contiguous portions of space-time... Where matter exists, so does energy; the greater the mass of matter involved, the greater the effect of the energy which can be transmitted. In addition, gravity affected light... exactly as it affected material particles. Thus the universe which Newton had seen, and for which he had constructed his apparently impeccable mechanical laws, was not the real universe... Einstein's paper gave not only a correct picture of the universe but also a fresh set of mechanical laws by which its details could be described" (R.W. Clark). "This paper was the first comprehensive overview of the final version of Einstein's general theory of relativity after several expositions of preliminary versions and latest revisions of the theory in November 1915. It includes a self-contained exposition of the elements of the tensor calculus that are needed for the theory. (T. Sauer in Landmark Writings in Western Mathematics). PMM: 408. Horblit 26 c. Weil 80.Boni: 78,1 Schilpp-Schields: 86.

Franckfurt, Zunner, 1684 (+) Franckfurt am Mayn, Zunner, 1684. 4to (215 x 185 mm). Recently bound in a magnificent pastiche-binding of brown half calf with five raised bands and gilt red leather title-label to elaborately gilt spine. Vellum corners. The frontispiece/engraved half title trimmed with loss to upper and lower part of the plate. Closed tear to outer margin. Title-page closely trimmed with loss to first line of title. A few leaves with marginal repairs. Light occassional browning throughout, otherwise internally nice and clean. (14), 220, 123, (5), 68 pp. + folded frontispiece/engraved half title. 41 woodcut in text depicting various processes of mining and metallurgy. Second edition, including Berward’s lexicon of mining terms, of Ercker’s seminal and beautifully illustrated work on mining and metallurgy – of immense importance to and influence upon the subject throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. Its detailed approach has made it a key reference in the history of science and technology, and its practical focus contributed to the economic development of mining regions. "Ercker's treatise is the most authoritative contemporary work on 16th-century metallurgy and assaying. Ercker gave a systematic review of methods of testing alloys and minerals and of obtaining and refining various metals, as well as methods of manufacturing acids, salts and other chemical compounds, including saltpeter. He described the apparatus and laboratory equipment used in metallurgy and assaying and gave a detailed account of laboratory methods, all of which he himself had used." (Norman) "Erker's Beschreibung may be regarded as the first manual of analytical and metallurgical chemistry. The only one of Ercker’s works to contain many drawings, it presents a systematic review of the methods of testing alloys and minerals of silver, gold, copper, antimony, mercury, bismuth, and lead; of obtaining and refining these metals, as well as of obtaining acids, salts, and other compounds. The last chapter is devoted to saltpeter. Ercker's account of the fact that zinc precipitates other metals from solutions is to be found only in the 1684 and later editions" (DSB). “Considering the importance of Ercker’s tratise it is remarkable how little is on record about him. He was inspector-general of the mine of Hungary, Transylvania, and the Tyrol, which position he held under three consecutive emperors in the sixteenth century. He book was highly prized at the time, for it was a record of practical experiences, and was not burdened with theories and hypotheses. (Ferguson). Ferguson 1, 244. (The 1736-edition).Duveen, p. 195.

London, W. Bulmer and Co., 1805 - 1806. 4to. In recent marbled paper wrappers. Extracted from "Philosophical Transactions". Leaves reinforced in margin. (4), (239)-266, (2), 185-198 pp. First edition of these two important papers by Captain Matthew Flinders, the first circumnavigator of Australia.OBSERVATIONS UPON THE MARINE BAROMETER:First printing of this important paper relating Flinder's observations on the ship "Investigator" when exploring the coast of Australia. IN THE PAPER THE NAME "AUSTRALIA" APPEARS PROBABLY FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A SCIENTIFIC MEMOIR (p. 247).The name Australia was popularised by Matthew Flinders, who pushed for the name to be formally adopted as early as 1804. When preparing his manuscript and charts for his 1814 A Voyage to Terra Australis, he was persuaded by his patron, Sir Joseph Banks, to use the term Terra Australis as this was the name most familiar to the public. Flinders did so, but allowed himself the footnote:"Had I permitted myself any innovation on the original term, it would have been to convert it to Australia; as being more agreeable to the ear, and an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth." In the paper offered he used the name "Australia" as early as 1806.CONCERNING THE DIFFERENCES IN THE MAGNETIC NEEDLE:First printing of, probably the first work, to discover, and correct for the errors of the compass caused by the iron in ships, by the first circumnavigator of Australia."Captain Matthew Flinders RN (16 March 1774 - 19 July 1814) was one of the most successful navigators and cartographers of his age. In a career that spanned just over twenty years, he sailed with Captain William Bligh, circumnavigated Australia and encouraged the use of that name for the continent, which had previously been known as New Holland. He survived shipwreck and disaster only to be imprisoned for violating the terms of his scientific passport by changing ships and carrying prohibited papers. He identified and corrected the effect upon compass readings of iron components and equipment on board wooden ships and he wrote what may be the first work on early Australian exploration A Voyage to Terra Australis."(Wikepedia)

London, G. Robinson, 1778. 4to. Later (19th Century) hcalf. Raised bands, richly gilt spine. Fronthinge broken, but block fully intact. Stamps on title-page. (3),II,III,IV,(9-)649,(3) pp. 1 folded table, 1 folded chart. First leaves lightly brownspotted. Scattered faint marginal brownspots. Wide-margined. First edition of Forster's own account on the second of Cook's voyages where he became the naturalist. When Joseph Banks withdrew at the last moment as naturalist on Cook's second voyage, Forster and his son were appointed to fill the vacant position. In July 1772 they set sail on the Resolution, returning to England in July 1775. During a stop in Cape Town, Forster engaged Anders Sparrman to act as his assistant. Both the Forsters kept detailed diaries of everything they saw on the voyage, and made extensive collections of both natural history specimens and artifacts. On his return Forster published the offered work."At the time of his death he was called the 'patriarch' of geography in Europe and was widely recognised as one of the most able naturalists. His influence on German science and scholarship was considerable. There was not one continent to which he did not devote some scholarly work." (Captain Cook Society).Sabin, 25140.

Kjøbenhavn (Copenhagen), Andr. Fred. Høst, 1850. 8vo. Et nydeligt samt. hldrbd. m. samt. tidstypisk rig rygforgyldn. En smule slitage v. false og kapitæler, en anelse svag i forreste indre fals, ellers et nydeligt ekspl., kun indimellem brunplettet. X, 190; XII, 206, (2, -avertissement) pp. 8vo. Nice cont. hcalf w. richly gilt back. A bit of waer to hinges and capitals, and inner front hinge a bit weak, otherwise a very nice and good copy w. only occational brownspotting. X, 190; XII, 206, (2, -advertisement-leaf) pp. Originaludgaven af Ørsteds naturfilosofiske hovedværk med dedikation fra forfatteren til "Herr Professor og Dr i Theologien/ Scharling/ venskabeligst/ fra/ Forfatteren." Under dedikationen er tilføjet et håndskrevet citat fra et brev af Sophie Ørsted (f. Oehlensläger) (fra Adam Oehlenschlägers Erindringer) i samtidig hånd (sandsynligvis Scahrlings). Dedikationen er til professor Carl Emil Scharling (1803-77), teolog, som var bror til Ørsteds datters (Karen) mand. First edition of Oersted's main work in natural philosophy. Presentation-copy with the inscription "Herr Professor og Dr i Theologien/ Scharling/ venskabeligst/ fra/ Forfatteren." (Mr. Professor and Doctor of Theology/ Scharling/ with the kindest regards/ The Author"). Underneath the presentation-inscription a handwritten quotation from a letter from Sophie Oersted (born Oehlenschläger) (from Adam Oehlenschläger's Memoires) in cont. hand (probably that of Scharling). The presentation-inscription is for professor Carl Emil Scharling (1803-77), theologist, who was the brother of Oersted's daughter's (Karen) husband.Oersted is universally known for his discovery of Electro-Magnetism in 1820. Afterwards he went on to write a number of important philosophical works on natural philosophy and empiricism, of which "Aanden i Naturen" he himself considered his main work. The work is found printed on 2 sorts of paper, common- and vellum-paper. This copy is on vellum-paper. Both H.C. Andersen and Søren Kierkegaard admit to having been influenced by the writings of Oersted. "He was an enthusiastic follower of the "Naturphilosophie" school in Germany, whose main object was the unification of physical forces, thus producing a monistic theory of the universe. It was to further this purpose that Oersted sought in actual phenomena the electro-magnetic identity of which he had already convinced himself on metaphysical grounds" (Percy H. Muir in Printing and The Mind of Man).

Wien, Christian Friedrich Wappler, 1792. Bound in 2 contemp. marbled boards. Spines gilt. Titlelables with gilt lettering. Very light wear along edges and spineends. XVI,408;(10),497,(2, Druckfehler) pp. and 16 folded engraved plates of which 11 are handcoloured, each with many figs. of eyes (in all 94). The 5 plain plates showing chirurgical apparatus. Some scattered brownspots. A few plates with a bit of offsetting, but a good copy. The colouring is exquisite, done by Beer himself. Scarce first edition of this classic work in opthalmology, being the work which established ophthalmology as an independent scientific speciality. "Beer was outstanding in his clinical practise and as an author. He was the founder of the first ophthalmological school and clinc" (Albert and Blodi), and he became chairman of the first university eye department of the world (in Vienna)."Beer is rembered for his text-book; the doctrines in it dominated practice for many years. He described the symptoms of glaucoma and noted the luminosity of the fundud in aniridia. He was a distinguished irisdectomist. many of his pupils became famus ophthalmic surgeons. Beer opened the first known eye hospital, in 1786, in Vienna." (Garrison & Morton 5842, describing only the later edition from 1813-17 "Lehre von den Augenkrankheiten).Waller, 829. - This first edition not in Wellcome.

Kopenhagen, Nicolaus Möller, 1774-78. 4to. Bound in 2 contemp. hcalf. Gilt spines. Title-and tome-labels with gilt lettering. A paperlabel pasted on upper part of spines. Slightly rubbed. Stamps on title-pages. 2 engraved titlevignettes. Halftitles. XVI,(6),505,(1);(16),479 pp. 1 large folded map, outlinecoloured "Tabula Iteneraria... Terrae Yemen... 1763." and 124 engraved maps and plates (complete). A dampstain on lower part of leaves in volume 2, increasing towards end. Printed on good paper. A few scattered brownspots. Scarce first edition of Niebuhr's great travel account of Arabia. Like his "Beschribung von Arabien", his "Reisebeschreibung von Arabien" "provided a mass of new geographical, regional, and historical information... Among is many exact maps and plans, the map of the Red Sea and of Yemen served as the most reliable information for more than 50 years.""Despite its tragic course, the expedition was a complete success with regard to its scientific and scholarly results. It was especially due to Niebuhr's efforts to preserve and continue his and his collegues' , that the Royal Danish Library was eventually equipped with a host of oriental manuscripts, maps, and drawings, as well as many botanical and zoological specimens... It was Niebuhr who edited and published Forskåll's Flora Aegyptiaco-Arabica (1775) and Descriptiones Animalium (1775), together with the drawings of Bauerfeind. In 1772 he had alredy published his systematic and geographically organized beschreibung von Arabien, which was followed between 1774 and 1778 by the first two volume of his three-volume chronologically arranged Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien. (the item offered, the third volume was published many years later, 1837). Both works, written in a clear and sober language and illustrated with numerous precise drawings, maps, and plans, provided a mass of new geographical, regional, and historical information... Among is many exact maps and plans, the map of the Red Sea and of Yemen served as the most reliable information for more than 50 years."(Josef Wiesehöfer).

London, Published by William Samt, (1825 ?). Folio. Contemporary red longgrained half-morocco. Richly gilt back, all edges gilt. Top a. bottom of spine professionally repaired. Title, (42) pp. of text to the plates and 21 fine hand-coloured aquatint-plates in fine colouring and condition. Some plates watermarked 1824 a. 1825. Abbey I: 113-14. Tooley: 443.

Basel, Johannem Hervagium & Bernhardum Brand, 1558. Folio. (30,5x21,5). Bound in 19th century brown hmorocco with 5 raised bands. Light wear to back and corners a bit bumped. (2),587 pp.Numerous wood-cut diagrams and initials throughout. First ab. 20 leaves with different degrees of yellowing and occasional with marginal faint dampstaining. 3 leaves with upper right corners repaired without loss of text. The "privilege" at verso of title partly unreadable as a piece of paper is pasted on, some of these letters are faint, just as some letters in "Basiliae" on title are weak. Last leaf with colophon and printers large woodcut-device on verso is mounted, but not hiding the wood-cut. The word "Basiliae" on last leaf recto, is weak or nearly gone. Overall a large good copy as usually without the foreword by Melanchton. A small rubber-stamp on title: "Duplum Bibliothecæ V.E." and in old hand: "Bibliothecæ Conventij Romani S. Andrea de Fratrij (?)" Scarce third printing of the so-called Zambert-Campanus Edition of the Elements, all printed by Johann Herwagen in Basel - this edition printed together with his son-in-law Bernhard Brand. The first of the Herwagen prints was the famous Editio Princeps in Greek from 1533, and in 1537 he published a Latin version, which became the first Euclid-editon to contain also Euclids smaller tracts as "Phenomena"(Spherical geometry), "Katroptik" (Mirror-reflexion), "Optik" und "Data"(Geometrical excersises). The 1537- edition was reprinted 1546 and in 1558 (the present)."The most famous source of Greek geometry is the monumental work of Euclid of Alexandria, called the "Elements" (around 300 B.C.). No other book of science had a comparable influence on the intellectual development of mankind. It was a treatise of geometry in thirteen books which included all the fundamental results of scientific geometry up to his time. Euclid did not claim for himself any particular discovery, he was merely a compiler. Yet, in view of the systematic arrangement of the subject matter and the exact logical procedure followed, we cannot doubt that he himself provided a large body of specific formulations and specific auxiliary theorems in his deductions. It is no longer possible to pass judgement on the authorship of much of this material; his book was meant as a textbook of geometry which paid attention to the material, while questions of priority did not enter the discussion." (Cornelius Lanzos in "Space through the Ages").Max Steck III:57 - Thomas-Stanford: 15 - Riccardi 1558/3 - Adams E:976.

Leipzig, Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1850. Contemp. marbled boards. Gilt spine, titlelabel with gilt lettering. Light wear to spineends, corners and edges. Stamps on title-page (Gusstahlfabrik Fried. Krupp). In "Annalen der Physik und Chemie", Dritte Reihe, 19. Band (79. Band der ganzen Reihe). IX,(1),580 pp. and 3 folded engraved plates. (Entire volume offered). Endpapers and the first and last few leaves with brownspots. Clausius's paper: pp. 368-397 a. pp. 500-524. Internally clean. First edition of this monumental, famous paper in thermodynamics in which Clausius for the first time states the Second Law of Thermodynamics, one of the most importent laws of Nature having a huge impact on the development of physical theory, cosmology, communications and information theory. The law states that a) the energy of the Universe is constant, and b) the Entropy of the Universe tends to a maximum."Clausius' contribution to thermostatics is comparable to those of Newton and Maxwell to mechanics and electromagnetism, respectively. In the obituary J.W. Gibbs remarked that Clausiu's first memoir "marks an epoch in the history of physics....."" (Chowdhury and Stauffer in "Principles of Equilibrium Statistical Mechanics").In "The Nature of the Physical World" Eddington writes: "The Law that entropy increases - the Second Law of Thermodynamics - holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the Universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations - then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation - well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the Second Law of Thermodynamics I can give You no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.".Parkinson "Breakthroughs", 1850 P.

Leipzig, Voss u. Compagnie, 1794-1801. 4to. Bound in 4, a little later hcalf, richly gilt backs. Leather along fronthinge with tears, but but not broken and binding tight. 4 engraved titlepages of which the 2 first are handcoloured, and 2 printed titles (to volume 3 a. 4). 154;176;VIII,188;178;62 pp. and 141 fine engraved and handcoloured plates (numb. 1-142, n. 77 lacks). A few repairs to outher margins of titlepage and some plates and textlvs. A few plts. and textlvs. browned in lower margin. First edition of this scarce botanical work which was issued in 28 parts with in all 152 plates. The suite here having 141 of 142 plates in fine handcolouring. - From the Introduction: "Die Zeichnungen sind entweder von mir selbst oder von geschickten Künstlern unter meiner Aufsicht, nach der Natur und der vortrefflichen Abbildungen in Will. Curtis Flora Londinensis (London 1777-94) verfertiget...Die illumination wird unter eines Kunstverständigen in Meissen besorgt". - Nissen BBI: 528.

Altona, J.F. Hammerich, 1807. Contemp. hcalf. Gilt spine, titlelabel in leather (letters worn). Light wear to top of spine and corners. Spine rubbed. Some wear to edges of covers. A stamp on title-page. XVI, 368; VIII, 358, (2) pp. A few leaves in the first quire disbound. Scattered brownspots and a few marginal underlinings on the first 20 leaves. Rare first German edition of this political and economic classic, which constitutes Malthus' first major publication and his main work, because of which he is considered the father of demography and one of the main sources of inspiration for Darwin and Wallace. It is the first translation of the "Principle on Population" into any language, and it influenced German politics tremendously.The first edition was printed anonymously in London in 1798, and in 1803 the second edition, which, also according to Malthus himself, can be said to constitute a new work, appeared; -the great quarto edition from 1803 is thoroughly revised and much enlarged, the title has been changed and Malthus' name appears on the title-page for the first time, it is on this edition that all the preceding editions are based, and in consequence also the early translations. All the later editions were minor revisions of the second one. In 1806 the third edition appeared, and as soon as 1807 the first German one, which is translated from the revised third edition ("Die gegenwärtige Uebersetzung ist nach der dritten Ausgabe, Oktav, London 1806. Die Quartausgabe ist minder vollständig", Vorwort, p. V). New revisions of the text kept appearing till the sixth edition in 1826. The book, then as now, is considered highly controversial, and it has influenced all demographers ever since, as well as being of immense importance to the study of economic theory and genetic inheritance. "The "Essay" was highly influential in the progress of thought in the early nineteenth-century Europe.... "Parson" Malthus, as Cobbett dubbed him, was for many, a monster and his views were often grossly misinterpreted.... But his influence on social policy, whether for good or evil, was considerable. The Malthusian theory of population came at the right time to harden the existing feeling against the Poor Laws and Malthus was a leading spirit behind the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834." (PMM 251).Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834), called the "enfant terrible" of the economists, was an English demographer, statistician and political economist, who is best known for his groundbreaking views on population growth, presented in his "Essays on the Principle of Population", which is based on his own prediction that population would outrun food supply, causing poverty and starvation. Among other things this caused the legislation, which lowered the population of the poor in England. Malthus actually turned political, economic and social thought upside down with this work, which has caused him to be considered one of the 100 most influential persons in history (Hart, The 100: A Ranking of the most Influential Persons in History, 1978). Of course, he was condemned by Marx and Engels, and opposed by the socialists universally, but the work was of immense impact on not only politics, economics, social sciences etc, but also on natural sciences. "Later in the "Origin of Species" he [Darwin] wrote that the struggle for existence "is the doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms; for in this case there can be no artificial increase of food, and no prudential restraint from marriage" [p. 63]. Alfred Russel Wallace, who arrived at a worked-out formulation of the theory of evolution at almost precisely the same time as Darwin, acknowledged that "perhaps the most important book I read was Malthus's "Principles of Population" (My Life, p. 232). Although there were four decennial censuses before Malthus' death, he did not himself analyze the data, although he did influence Lambert Quetelet and Pierre Verhulst, who made precise statistical studies on growth of populations in developed countries and showed how the early exponential growth changed to an S curve." (DSB, IX, p. 69). As Malthus realized that his theories were not satisfactorily presented or sufficiently demonstrated in the first edition from 1798, he travelled for three years through Europe gleaning statistics, and then published the second edition in 1803. Among other places he travelled through Northern Germany, and his detailed diaries of these journeys provided him with some of the evidence necessary for the development of his theory on population growth. The observational information that he gathered on his travels in Europe were crucial to the development of his theories, which also means that the work is of great interest for other European countries, and not only Britain. "In 1819 the Royal Society elected Malthus to a fellowship. He was also a member of the French Institute and the Berlin Academy, and a founding member of the Statistical Society (1834)." (DSB, IX, p. 67). Printing and the Mind of Man 251 (first edition).

New Haven, Conn., J.D. & E.S. Dana, 1881. 8vo. Extracted from "The American Journal of Science", Third series vol. XXII, Numb. CXXVIII, pp. (87-) 166. With title-page to the entire volume. Title-page with a faint rubberstamp. The Michelson-paper: pp. 120-129. Two leaves with small tear to the margin. The seminal first edition of the first description of the first version of a series of experiments with the Interferometer, which was built by Michelson and with which he planned to measure the relative speeds of light-waves moving at right angles to each other - an experiment that would ultimately lead to the special theory of relativity. The series of experiments ended with the so-called "Michelson-Morley experiment", the results of which were published 6 years after Michelson's first experiment (the item offered here). The 1887 paper, written together with Morley, constituted an improved attempt of the 1881- version of the experiment. The experiments were designed to calculate the effect of the earth's motion on the passage of light rays through the "luminous ether", which was believed to surround the earth. The experiments were negative and as such led to the introduction of relativity."Michelson tried to determinate the relation of ether drift and the velocity of light, effect of extremely minute values...no drift could be found and the "negative result held revolutionary implications which led directly through Lorentz and Einstein to the acceptance of new standards of reference of time and space from geometry an cosmometry."(Dibner).In 1919 Einstein met Michelson in California. At a dinner given in honor of them both, Einstein said in a speech "You (Michelson) uncovered an insidious defect in the ether theory of light, as it existed, and stimulated the ideas of H.A. Lorentz and Fitzgerald, out of which the Special Theory of Relativity developed. Without your work this theory would today be scarcely more than an interesting speculation..." In an interview in 1842 Einstein said: "It is no doubt that Michelson's experiment was of considerably influence upon my work insofar as it strengthened my conviction concerning the validity of the Principle of relativity...On the other side I was pretty much convinced of the validity of the principle before I did know this experiment and its result. In any case, Michelson's experiment removed practically any doubt about the validity of the principle in optics and showed that a profound change of the basic concepts of physics was inevitable."Michelson was awarded the 1907 Nobel Prize "for his optical precision instrument (the inteferometer) and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations he has carried on."Dibner: Heralds of Science: 161 (the 1887-experiment) - Vide PMM: 378,410,408.

London, Marcus Ward & Co., 1878. Folio. (49 x 35 cm.). Orig. full pictotial cloth. Richly gilt. Spine-ends repaired. First inner hinge strenghtened. Edges gilt. Halftitle with a stamp. (1-7)8-83 pp. With 16 mounted, fine chromolithographed plates, many textillustrations, 1 map. Title-page printed in red/black. Internally clean fine. First edition. "It is believed by both Artist and Publishers that a much fuller and more vivid idea of Arctic scenery can be produced by careful chromo-lithographic fac-similes of the original drawings made by Dr Edward L. Moss during the Expedition, than by any rendering in black and white. The sketches are not designed to illustrate the progress of the Expedition, or any stirring events in its history, so much as the appearance of the strange and desolate country by the shores of which the ships slowly steamed, the wonderful phenomena of the sky, and the effects of light and shade produced by a midnight sun, or a mid-day moon, on the ice-bound rocks which form the scenery of the region. They are here reproduced ... in order to make them more generally accessible ... It must be added that the sketches are all the work of one hand - Dr Edward L. Moss, who served on board the Alert in the Arctic Expedition which left England on the 29th of May, 1875, and entered the Arctic regions on the 4th of July in the same year. Although the Expedition failed in reaching the Pole - which was among the sailing orders on which it started - it yet achieved results of the highest scientific and geographic value. Of what kind was the life they led - what strange experiences they gained of natural phenomena, and the freaks of light on ice and rock - the accompanying drawings illustrate with a vividness and fullness never before arrived at in sketches of Arctic life." (Scott Polar Research Institute).

(Colophon:) Kiøbenhaffn (Copenhagen), Matz Wingaardt, 1576. 4to. Pragtfuldt samtidigt hellæderbind af kalveskind over træ med skråtskårne kanter og 2 lukkestroppe med messingbeslag (det ene hængsel løst), antageligt udført af en dansk bogbinder. 3 ophøjede ægte bind på ryggen og med blindtrykte stregbordurer. Permer med dobbelte stregrammer og 2 brede rammer udført med ruller og stempler. Midtfelterne med stort pladetrykt billede af Justitia, på bagpermen et billede af Justinian ?. Kapitæler med mindre reparationer. Titelbladet med en træsnit illustration af den danske konge med rigsvåbnet. Kolofon med Gotfred af Ghemens trykkermærke i træsnit. 111 unummerede blade. Indersiden af forpermen har notater i gl. hænder vedrørende bogens indhold. Fra Oscar Wandels bogsamling med hans exlibris. Da bogen ikke er ombundet foreligger den her i dens opsrindelige størrelse med pænt brede marginer. Få spredte brunpletter. Nogle blade med en svag skjold nederst på siderne. De første 6 blade (incl. titelbladet) er noget restaurerede med senere omkantning. Titelbladet har en smule tab af stregrammen omkring kongen, blad 2 recto har tab af et ord i nederste linie (tagher). Trykt på svært papir. Extremely rare first printing of what is arguably the world's first facsimile, namely Mads Vingaard's 1576 reproduction of the first printing of the Law of Sealand, originally printed by Ghemen in 1505 and here re-issued in exact reproduction. This wonderful print is not merely a "line to line, word to word"-reproduction, but a facsimile making use of the same types and exact reproductions of the woodcuts. It is generally believed that "the first facsimile in the history of the book was a manuscript of Austrian provenance - the Goldene Bulle - reproduced in 1697 by the Frankfurt law historian Heinrich Günther Thülemeyer and Johann Friedrich Fleischer" (from "Imagination, Almanach" 1986-1993, Sammelheft. 1993; 2006). The present reproduction predates that work otherwise hailed as the first "facsimile" in the history of the book by more than a century!Some credit Plantin in the 17th century with being the first to produce a facsimile. This is also about a century after Mats Vingaard's facsimile of the Law of Sealand. Like the laws of Sealand and The Law of Scania, The Law of Jutland" constitutes a law book ("Rechtsbuch" in German) in the sense of a private collection of those common laws pertaining to inheritance, ownership, marriage, measurement of land, murder, theft, vandalism, etc. that were commonly applicable in the region.The medieval Danish regional laws possess an immense importance both linguistically and legally, and the influence is evident even today, both in the development of our legal system and of our written language. At the time of their foundation, the Danish kingdom was divided into jurisdictional areas, lands, that in turn were divided into townships. Each land had a county council, which also served as a judicial court. It quite quickly became standard for the township court to be able to refer verdicts and rulings to the county/land council. In the 13th century, there were three main lands, namely Jutland, Sealand and Skåne. With time, these three lands came to rule over all townships, and thus, we find three ruling legal books from the 13th century, namely the three earliest Danish law books - Jyske Lov, the Sealandic Laws, and Skånske Lov. They were all printed for the first time in 1505 and 1505 respectively. It is not until 1683 (with "Danske Lov") that Denmark gets a law that covers the entire kingdom. The 1576 facsimile is scarce and Thesaurus estimates that only ab. 10 copies still exist on private hands.

(Calcutta, Printed and sold by Manuel Cantopher, and sold at London by P. Elmsly, 1788). 4to. Extracted and bound in a recent vey nice marbled dark blue paper-binding w. matching gilt burgundy leather title-label to front board. A very nice and clean copy. Pp. 415-431 The seminal first edition of this groundbreaking paper which determined the connection between the Indo-European languages and thereby founded comparative philology and Indo-European studies. "This slim paper read to the Bengal Asiatic Society and published in its "Transaction" marks a turning-point in the history of linguistics and signaled the birth of comparative philology." (PMM 235).Sir William Jones (1746-1794) was an English philologist and judge who was stationed in India in 1780. He is the founder of the Asiatic Society and now famous as the discoverer and propounder of the existence of a relationship between the Indo-European languages. As he was stationed in India, he set out to master the ancient Sanskrit language, among other things in order to study native Indian law codes, which were written in this language. Due to his excellent language skills and his already perfect mastering of Greek and Latin, Jones discovered a shocking similarity between the languages in a huge number of words. By this discovery of the connection between Latin, Greek and Sanskrit, Jones had, without realizing it initially, discovered what was to be known as proto-Indo-European, -the lost mother tongue of almost all European, Indian and Russian languages as well as some Middle Eastern ones. And thus, with this breakthrough work, Jones, for the first time in history, presents man with the fact that there exists one single, ancient, prehistoric language that led to the development of numerous languages in Europe, India, Russia and the Middle East. It was to take subsequent scholars almost a decade to uncover what exactly this language was, but because of Jones' founding of comparative philology, the likes of Karl Verner and Jakob Grimm have been able to do this.The passage, for which Jones is most famous comes from the present work and has gone down in history as the single most important passage within the literature pertaining to comparative philology: "The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists; there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and the Celtic, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family." With these words, linguistics had witnessed a turning-point that was to change this science for ever and that was furthermore to point in the direction of a future understanding of the common heritage that much of mankind possesses. "In 1786 Jones made his epoch-making discovery between the Sanskrit, Gothic, Greek and Latin languages -to which he later, erroneously, thought he could add Egyptian. His clear understanding of the basic principles of scientific linguistics provided the foundation on which Rask, Bopp and Grimm built the imposing structure of Indo-European studies." (PMM 235).

Hafniae (Copenhagen), Petrus Haubold, 1674. 4to. Contemporary full mottled calf with five raised bands to richly gilt spine. Upper and lower part of spine worn and restored. Some overall wear and a bit of worming. Internally evenly browned. Contemporary notes in neat hand to front free end-paper and additional information about contents in same hand to title-page. Title-page printed in red/black. (8), 200 pp. + engraved plate depicting snow crystals. Exceedingly scarce first edition of this collection of 13 academic treatises on the wonders of nature. This magnificent work, by one of the greatest Danish polymaths of all time, epitomizes the the range of topics on which Bartholin wrote. Among the essays and lectures collected here, we have "The study of the Danish language" (1657); "The shape of snow" (1660); "The pores of bodies" (1663); "On Cartesian physics" (1664); "On nature" (1666); "On judgement and memory" (1667); "On experiment" (1668); "On physical hypotheses" (1669); "On the shape of bodies" (1671); "Secrets of the sciences" (1673).Rasmus Bartholin (also known in the latinized form Erasmus Bartholinus) (1625 - 1698) was a famous Danish scientist, physician and grammarian, famous primarily for his discovery ) of the double refraction of a light ray by Iceland spar (calcite), for writing the first grammar of the Danish language, and for his work on Descartes' analytic geometry."Erasmus Bartholin's father was Caspar Berthelsen Bartholin... There were six sons in the family, and Erasmus had a brother, Thomas Bartholin, who was nine years older than himself. These two brothers went on to become equally famous. Erasmus received his first education from private tutors, then he attended a Latin school. He entered the University of Copenhagen in 1642, receiving his B.A. in 1644 and an M.A. in 1647. From 1645 he studied mathematics at the University of Leiden, travelling to France in 1651 but then going to Italy where he studied at a number of places including Padua from where he received a medical degree in 1654. From 1656 he was professor of geometry at the University of Copenhagen but transferred to become an extraordinary professor of medicine in the following year. In 1671 he was appointed to an ordinary chair of medicine at Copenhagen, a post to held until his death. In 1667 he was appointed Royal Mathematician.He served the University of Copenhagen as dean of the faculty of medicine, librarian, and rector, and was appointed royal physician and privy councillor.Despite being professor of medicine for a long period, he wrote relatively little on that topic. In terms of the number of publications, mathematics was the largest part of his work, but his work in this area is not of great importance. In fact he is best known for work in yet another area, for he was the discoverer of the double refraction of light. Bartholin edited Introduction to the geometry of Descartes by van Schooten and also translated Optics of Larissa into Latin. Every year between 1664 and 1674 he produced a book Dissertatio de problematibus geometricis. This consisted of theses which he had proposed for his students to defend. In the sixth such book, published in 1672, he gave a proof of what is known as the second problem of Debeaune, formulated in a letter to Mersenne written in 1638. The problem is the first example of an inverse tangent problem which in modern notation results in requiring the solution to the differential equation dy/dx = (x - y)/a, y(0) = 0.This has solution y = x + a(e-x/a - 1). Descartes solved Debeaune's problem in 1639. Bartholin considered the problem in geometric form. Pedersen suggests that Bartholin's proof may actually be Debeaune's original proof which we know he sent to Descartes. Bartholin could well have come across the proof in papers which Debeaune sent him for safe keeping shortly before his death in 1652. To see the range of topics on which Bartholin wrote, consider his book De naturae mirabilibus quaestiones academicae which he published in 1674. This consists of essays and lectures written over a number of years such as: The study of the Danish language (1657); The shape of snow (1660); The pores of bodies (1663); On Cartesian physics (1664); On nature (1666); On judgement and memory (1667); On experiment (1668); On physical hypotheses (1669); On the shape of bodies (1671); and Secrets of the sciences (1673). Bartholin wrote a large number of mathematical works but he is best remembered for his discovery of the double refraction of light through a crystal of Iceland spar which had been gathered in an expedition to Iceland in 1668. He wrote his text Experimenta crystalli Islandici disdiaclastici quibus mira & insolita refractio detegitur on the geometry of crystals in 1669. The two rays he called solita and insolita and he showed that both were produced by refraction. During his experiments, Bartholin also observed that when the crystals of Iceland spar are rotated about their axis, one of the two images moves in a circle around the other. This is strong evidence that the crystals are somehow splitting the light into two different beams. Bartholin's explanation was based on Descartes' theory of light along with his idea that there were two sets of "pores" in the crystal. However, the true explanation is that the crystal splits the light into two plane-polarized beams. He observed the comets of 1664 and 1665, and made other astronomical observations, publishing his descriptions of these events in De cometis anni 1664 et 1665 opusculum (1665). Bartholin also prepared for publication the observations of Tycho Brahe. In both these pieces of work in astronomy he was assisted by Ole Romer. Bartholin is also famed for his medical work, in particular his introduction of quinine in the fight against malaria. Some of his medical contributions were made in conjunction with his brother Thomas Bartholin who was a professor of anatomy at the University of Copenhagen from 1646 to 1661. Thomas Bartholin founded the journal Acta medica et philosophica Hafniensia to which Erasmus Bartholin contributed papers." (J J O'Connor and E F Robertson, St. Andrews). Thesaurus: 348.

Oxoniae (Oxford), E Theatro Sheldoniano, 1702. Folio. Contemporary full calf, raised bands, rectangular blindtooled frames and central panel "mirror" on covers, Cambridge-style binding. leather at joints cracked, but cords intact so that covers not loose. Corners a bit bumped. Light wear to spine ends. Spine a bit rubbed. Pastedowns and flyleaves with browning. Title-page with large engraved vignette (Sheldon Theater). (12),494,(2) pp. With numerous textdiagrams. Very light browning to titlepage and a few marginal brownspots to last leaf, a fine clean copy, printed on good paper with wide margins.On the verso of the title-page is pasted the book plate of Sir William Baird of Newbaith. He habitually pasted his armorial bookplate on the verso of the title-pages of the books in his large and fine library. First edition of the first text book of astronomy based on Newtonian principles. Apart from its importance in the remodeling of astronomy in conformity with physical theory, the work is of the utmost importance as a source book - it contains the FIRST PRINTING OF NEWTON'S PAPER ON LUNAR THEORY ("Lunae Theoria Newtoniana", pp. 332-336) as well as the FIRST EXPOSITION OF NEWTON'S CLASSICAL SCHOLIA, which Newton himself considered an important part of his philosophy.Gregory, a Scottish mathematician, who taught at Edinburgh and Oxford, was one of Newton's closest friends and associates. Newton thought highly of his work and communicated for insertion it in his Lunar Theory. He also permitted Gregory to use the material of that which is known as his "Classical Scholia", which are incorporated into Gregory's preface. "Newtonian scholars have long been aware of a set of draft Scholia to Propositions IV to IX of Book III of the "Principia". These were composed in the 1690's, as part of an unimplemented plan for a second edition of the work. Since they describe supposed anticipation of Newton's doctrines in the thought of Greco-Roman antiquity, they have been known as the 'classical' Scholia..... Newton's thoughts on these matters were not, however, kept completely concealed. HE PERMITTED DAVID GREGORY TO USE THE MATERIAL EXTENSIVELY in a long historical preface to his "Astronomiae Physicae & Geometricae Elementa" (1702), IF WITHOUT ATTRIBUTION. (It was also available to Maclaurin for his much later work)." (McGuire & Rattansi in "Newton and the Pipes of Pan", 1966)."It was the first textbook composed on gravitational principles, and remodeling astronomy in conformity with physical theory. Newton thought highly of it, and communicated for insertion in it (p. 332)) his 'lunar theory', long the guide of practical astronomers in determining the Moon's motions. The discussion in the preface, in which the doctrine of gravitation was brought into credit on the score of its antiquity, likewise emanated from Newton." (DNB)."His thick folio text on foundations of astronomy, Astronomiae...elementa (1702) is a well-documented but unimaginative attempt to graft the gravitational synthesis propounded in the first book and especially the third book of Newton's Principia onto the findings of traditional astronomy. While respected as a source book it is now chiefly remembered for the remarks by Newton on the prisca sapientia of the ancients and their "knowledge" of the inverse-square law of universal gravitation and for the Latin version of Newton's short paper on lunar theory which it reproduces." (DSB).Babson No. 71. - Houzeau & Lancaster 9240.

Paris, Bachelier, 1851-52. 4to. 2 uniform full cloth bindings. Gilt spines, gilt lettering. Gil lettering on spines: "The Chemist's Club". Faint marks of earlier paper labels to spine. In "Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l’Académie des sciences", Vol. 32 and vol. 35. Entire volumes offered. (4),1026 pp. + (4),1010 pp. A stamp on top and verso of title-pages. Foucault's papers: pp. 135-138 (1851, vol. 32), pp. 421-424 (1852, vol. 35), pp. 424-427 (1852, vol. 35), pp. 469-470 (1852, vol. 35) and p. 602 (1852, vol. 35). First appearance of the seminal papers, in which Foucault presented his discovery of the proof of the rotation of the earth by the large pendulum, known as Foucault's Pendulum. The first papr offered here was presented by Arago at the meeting of the Acadey of Scieces on February 3, 1851. In the third paper, "Sur les phénoménes d'orientation des corps tournant entraînés par un axe fixe...", Foucault presents his invention of the gyroscope, a freely spinning flywheel, which constitutes a different method of demonstrating the rotation of the Earth; he furthermore correctly predicts the use of the gyroscope as a compass and coins the word "gyroscope" (on p. 427), taken from the Greek, meaning "to look at the rotation".Ever since Léon Foucault's public demonstration of his pendulum experiment, it has played a prominent role in physics, physics education, and the history of science. The Foucault pendulum is a long pendulum suspended high above the ground and carefully set into planar motion. The phenomenon described by Foucault concerns the orientation of the plane of oscillation of the pendulum. "The experiment (with the pendulum) caused great excitement at the time. Heracleides had first suggested twenty-two centuries before that the earth was rotating and Copernicus had renewed the suggestion three centuries before. Since the time of Galileo two and a half centuries before, the world of scholarship had not doubted the matter. Nevertheless, all evidence as to that rotation had been indirect, and not until Foucault's experiment could the earth's rotation actually be said to have been demonstrated rather that deduced." "Continuing to experiment on the mechanics of the earth's rotation, Foucault in 1852 invented the gyroscope, which, he showed, gave a clearer demonstration than the pendulum of the earth's rotation and had the property, similar to that of the magnetic needle, of maintaining a fixed direction. Foucault's pendulum and gyroscope had more than a popular significance (which continues to this day). First, they stimulated the development of theoretical mechanics, making relative motion and the theories of the pendulum and the gyroscope standard topics for study and investigation. Second, prior to Foucault's demonstrations the study of those motions on the earth's surface in which the deflecting force of rotation plays a prominent part (especially winds and ocean currents) was dominated by unphysical notions of how this force acted. Foucault's demonstrations and the theoretical treatments they inspired showed conclusively that this deflecting force acts in all horizontal directions, thus providing the sound physical insight on which Buys Ballot, Ferrel, Ulrich Vettin, and others could build. (DSB).PMM: 330 lists the offprint with the title "Sur Divers Signes Sensibles du Mouvement Diurne de la Terre" - Barchas Collection, 738 (the periodical version, but only the first paper) - Dibner, No. 17 (offprint version).

Cairo, Kütübhane-i Içtihad, 1908. 8vo. In recent full calf with four raised bands. With blind-stamped ornamentation to boards in old Ottoman style. Very light occassional brownspotting, last few leaves a bit frayed, but no loss of text. Otherwise a fine copy. 243 pp The very rare first complete Ottoman-Turkish translation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. "Although Hamlet was performed in Greek in 1842 and in Armenian in 1866 (Silahtaroglu 1989: 7), according to Savas Arslan, "the first complete translation of Hamlet was made from the French by Abdullah Cevdet and published in Cairo" (Arslan 2008: 159). Between 1908 and 1910, Abdullah Cevdet produced a large oeuvre of translations, including four translations of Shakespeare's tragedies: Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, and Romeo and Juliet to Ottoman Turkish. "A Certain Abdullah Cevdet, a doctor of medicine, a polemist, a printer, was also known as a Shakespeare idolator as he always found a way of mentioning Shakespeare in all his talks and in all his writings. Abdullah Cevdet translated and published in his own printing house first in Cairo and then in Istanbul five of Shakespeare's play, beginning with Hamlet in 1908 and ending the series with Anthony and Cleopatra in 1921" (Turhan, Vahit. Shakespeare in Turkish). Although Hamlet was published the same year as The Second Constitutional Era Abdülhamid II seemed to be even less tolerant of the dissemination of Hamlet, Macbeth, and Julius Caesar, all being about unjust rulers who were executed. The performances of these plays were subject to strict censorship in Ottoman dominated countries and they were banned from most of them. (Paker 1986: 91), which is most likely the reason for why Abdullah Cevdet was able to publish the translations of these plays only after 1908, though he had finished translating Hamlet in 1902. "It is necessary to note here that the initial literary import of Hamlet into the Ottoman literary system has been framed within the broader narrative of Hamidian absolutism. For instance, Ýnci Enginün points out that various attempts to perform Hamlet were turned down by Abdülhamid II in his bid to root out any attempt which would debilitate the absolute monarchy. Along similar lines, Sevda Ayluçtarhan highlights that Abdullah Cevdet’s 1908 translation of Hamlet was a "critical text" produced by a prominent culture-planner of the time in opposition to Abdülhamid II’s absolutist regime. Ayluçtarhan further points out that Cevdet’s Hamlet was motivated by his perception of the “parallels between Hamlet’s step-father and Abdulhamid II, who had been brought to the throne (1876) on the condition that he would promulgate the Constitution (Kanun-i Esasi) but did not really keep his promise.Cevdet’s translation was introduced to the Turkish audience at a time when the discourse of westernization was prevalent. The translation coincided with the announcement of a Constitutional Revolution that led to the dethronement of Abdülhamit II and ultimately to the promotion of western-inspired reforms. Since Cevdet was one of the ardent supporters of an Ottoman Renaissance through westernization, his translation has been framed as a symbol of the western canon within the Turkish context. For instance, Demirkol regards Cevdet’s translation as an object of culture-planning which was sought to promote westernization. In the same vein, Paker suggests that Cevdet’s Hamlet plays a "stimulating if not revolutionary role in the intellectual re-awakening of the Ottoman political and cultural milieu"." (Durmus, Discourses on Hamlet’s Journey in Turkey).

Basiliae (Basel), Froben, August 1531. Small 8vo. Very nice later (ab. 1700) full brown morocco, probably Italian, with gilt borders to boards, back richly gilt. Old library-label to lower back, scratch to front-board, white chalk-like staining to back-board. Internally a bit of brownspotting, but overall good condition. Contemporary marginal notes to three pp. Woodcut printer's device to t-p. and last leaf, a few woodcut initials. 144, (6) pp., 1 f. w. printer's device. With the ex-libris of Jeffrey Norton. Very rare Froben-edition of the first work by the Renaissance-historian Paolo Giovio. All early editions of this work are very rare.Giovio was a gifted philosopher, medic and historian. He was born in 1483 in Come (Lombard) and was as controversial a person as he was an author. He died in 1552 in Florence, and this particular edition is thus printed in his lifetime. Three other editions appeared in his lifetime, all printed in Rome, in 1524, 1527, 1528, but the 1531-edition is the only one by as prominent a printer as Froben.Giovio was very strategic and succeeded in connecting himself with the Medici-family, especially Giulio Medici, who was later elected Pope (Clement VIII); when he became Pope, Giovio was assigned chambers in the Vatican and in 1528 he was announced Bishop of Nocera. Giovio wrote historical and biographical works and essays; these works are said not to be taken as authorities, but in their entirety and with proper reservation they do have real value, especially because he gives a rich and lively picture of Italy in his own time. He gives indispensable accounts of the manners and lives of the people of Renaissance Italy. As a writer and clergy he played quite a big role in Renaissance Italy.This his first work is a rarity and plays a special part in his body of writing, as it is neither historical nor biographical. It deals with the types of fish that Romans eat and tells how to prepare them, it is thus of great importance to anyone interested in the lives and customs of the time, and it is sometimes counted among the earliest of cook books. It also provides names of the fish and details of where they can be found, and where the best of each species is most easily found, making it of real value to the ichthyologist; this work is also said to contain the first reference in history to American fish. The work was translated into Italian in 1560, eight years after the death of Giovio.Not in Simon. BMC (NH) only mentions the 1561 edition and the 1560 translation. Wood p. 359: "a very early treatise on Roman ichthyology" ("the rare" 1524 first edition).