History of ideas / Innovations

The precusor of the altimeter by Mendeleev

Extremely rare first edition of this work presenting for the first time
the barometer invented by Mendeleev.

St Petersburg, 1876.

No copy listed in any public institutions worldwide.

MENDELEEV, Dmitri Ivanovich. O barometricheskom nivelirovanii i o primenenii dlia nego vysotomera. (=About barometric levelling and about application of the altimeter).
St Petersburg, Université de la ville, 1876.

Large 8vo [252 x 158 mm] of (2) ll., viii pp., 184 pp., 1 folding plate. Two stamps from the Library of west Siberia on the half-title, allowing the sale of the copy. Preserved in its original beige printed wrappers, untrimmed. Spine of the wrappers worn, small portion of the tail of the spine missing.

Extremely rare first edition of this first presentation of the barometer invented by Mendeleev.

Dmitrii Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834-1907) is one of the most important scientists in the history of Russia and in the history of science. He discovers in 1869 the periodic law of chemical elements – one of the main laws of natural science. Mendeleev wrote a great number of works among which the famous « Osnovy khimii » (principles of chemistry) in 2 parts, 1869-1871, the first detailed presentation of inorganic chemistry. Tending towards the basic research in chemistry, he also specializes in technology, physics, metrology, meteorology, aeronautics, etc. He created the basis of the theory of liquids, and proposed his own way of cracking division of oil, invented a type of powder without smoke, and promoted the use of fertilizers, the irrigation of dry lands. He will be one of the main founding members of the Russian Chemical Society (1868). He will remain professor of chemistry at the University of St Petersburg from 1865 to 1890.

Mendeleev is the inventor of what he will call a “differential barometer” or altimeter. At the beginning of the 1870’s, in application of his gas density researches, he decides to use the normal barometer before understanding that he doesn’t need to define the absolute meaning of atmospheric pressure but the exact meaning of its changes. With this aim, he builds the differential barometer which is considered by all specialists as the precursor of the altimeter.
The very high precision of changes of pressure is reached thanks to the unusual choice of the manometrical liquid.
From 1872 to 1876 Mendeleev studied very carefully the various possibilities of construction of his barometer and its improving. The final construction of the equipment is presented in this work of a great scarceness.
Mendeleev was considering several fields of application to this barometer thanks to the definition of the modulation of altitudes of the various points of the ground. It would be used for the construction of railroads and in any kind of geological and forest researches before giving it its aeronautical letters patent of nobility.

« The centenarian of the independence of the United States was marked by an international fair in Philadelphia in June 1876. The town received various eminent personalities, famous for their contribution to the scientific or artistic fields. The local newspaper published the names of the famous people present at the exhibition. A new type of barometer, invented by the Russian chemist Mendeleev, was listed under n°241 of the catalogue of inventions and innovations exhibited. »

The present treatise is illustrated with a folding plate showing a view and a side section of the barometer.

A precious copy of this extremely rare scientific work, complete with its folding plate and preserved untrimmed in its original printed wrappers.

We couldn’t locate any copy of this work in a public institution worldwide (OCLC, COPAC, ccfr).

Price:  €23 000

First edition of the Pensées philosophiques by Diderot

First edition of the Pensées philosophiques by Diderot.
A copy in contemporary red morocco coming from
Louis Pierre Parat de Chalandray and Robert Hoe’s collections.

DIDEROT. Pensées philosophiques.
The Hague, Aux dépens de la Compagnie, 1746.

12mo [152 x 89 mm] of (1) bl.l., 1 frontispiece, (1) l. of title, 136 pp., (6) ll. of table, (1) bl.l.
Bound in contemporary full red morocco, triple gilt filet on covers, spine ribbed and decorated with gilt filets and fleurons, light-brown morocco lettering-piece, inner gilt border, flowered end-papers, gilt edges. A few small stains on covers. Contemporary binding.

First edition of the first great philosophical treatise by Diderot.
Tchemerzine, II, 919 ; David Adams, Bibliographie des œuvres de Denis Diderot, II, PD3 ; Niklaus (1965).

A copy on thick paper from the first issue according to Niklaus and Tchemerzine, with the printing errors mentioned by the latter at pp. 31 to 34 and 43 to 46 (ref. : Tchemerzine, II, 919) ; from the third issue according to David Adams (ref. : David Adams, II, PD3).

« The rare first issue contains printing errors at pp. 31 to 34 and 43 to 46 » (Tchemerzine).

The work appears like an eulogy of deism, opposed in the meantime to the revealed religions, especially to christianity and to atheism.
« Diderot denounces the absurdity of the different dogmas of the Christian religion that he judges as immoral, while emphasizing the weakness of the evidences invoked by it, notably historical evidences, most of the time based on suspicious statements. He also blames the ideal of asceticism of Christian moral to which he proposes to substitute a moral aiming a free development of the human nature. Besides Diderot undertakes to refute atheism that he opposes to the sight of the order of nature, especially the one ruling the living world, which reveals, according to him, the existence of a creative intelligence. Nevertheless he recognizes the strength of the arguments presented by the atheists, and that it is why sometimes it was said that the deism paraded by Diderot was the mask of an atheism which did not dare to tell its real name ».
The treatise contains 62 philosophical thoughts.

The moment that it was published, it was condemned to fire by the Parliament of Paris on July 7th 1746 as « presenting to the worried and rash minds the spite of the most criminal and the most absurd opinions, which depravity of the human reason is capable of, and placing by a feigned uncertainty all the religions on the same rank ending up as unable to acknowledge any of them ».
Belin : Le mouvement philosophique de 1748 à 1789, p. 25. Parie, 1913.

The present work is illustrated in first issue with an engraved frontispiece representing the Truth, standing on the right pulling out the mask from the Superstition who, knocked over, is holding a broken scepter.

A beautiful wide-margined copy preserved in its contemporary red morocco.

Provenance: handwritten note on the endleaf: « Donné le 17 février 1782 à Mr. De Chalandray par Mme. sa mere » and Robert Hoe with ex libris.
Louis Pierre Parat de Chalandray (1746-1836) is a high-ranking official and French politician. He was the last lord of La Celle Saint-Cloud and of Bazemont under the Ancien Régime, and the mayor of Bazemont for 22 years. He was born in Paris on November 14th 1746. Coming from a family of powerful financiers, his father is Jérome Louis Parat de Montgeron (1713-1792). He starts his public career as receiver-general of finances of Lorraine and Barrois, office inherited from his father, then he becomes receiver-general of finances of the Orleanais.

Price: € 15 000

The chromatic synthesis by Cros

Rare first edition of the “Solution du problème de la photographie des couleurs”.

En Français dans le texte, B.n.F., n°292.

CROS, Charles. Solution générale du problème de la photographie des couleurs par Charles Cros. Prix: 1 Franc.
Paris, chez Gauthier-Villars, et au bureau du journal Les Mondes, 1869.

8vo [23.4 x 15.5 cm]; 12 pp. Original printed wrappers, slipcase.

Rare first edition.

Charles Cros is especially known as a poet: Le Coffret de santal, published by the author in 1873, drew the attention with the passing years of various minds such as Verlaine, Laforgue or Léautaud; Le Collier de griffes, posthumous (1908), will appear to the Surrealist as an exemplary work of the revolt like the one or Rimbaud or Lautréamont. But, for a long time, the general public only wants to know « Le Hareng-saur », sec, sec, sec… Very few people know that this encyclopaedic mind is also a scientist, explorer of the mysteries of the outer space, inventor of the phonograph and of colour photography […]. The first book of this man who likes to think he is a poet is a scientific work: it’s the present volume […]. This pamphlet recapitulates the main points of the paper read at the Science society two years earlier (1867) and an article published in “Les Mondes”, a scientific periodical edited by the abbot Moigno (February 23d, 1869). However, Cros adds here an essential new invention: the chromatic synthesis. From that moment, colour photography has been discovered, at least in theory”. Unfortunately, Ducos de Hauron , at exactly the same time and independently,  got the same results, leading to a brief controversy and depriving Cros of a part of his glory. However until the last months of his life he kept doing researches that obeyed the same passion as the one of the Impressionists for colour. Besides, it is according to the “Printemps” of Manet (1882) that Cros realized his first coloured prints (reproduction in the Oeuvres completes of Charles Cors, Pauvert, 1964, pp. 528-529).
Louis Forestier. En Français dans le texte, B.n.F., n°292.

A good copy. Only one copy has been recorded in ABPC for the last 33 years.

Price: € 6 500

The earliest Arabic grammar translated into French

« By a new but simple process I undertake to make eastern languages easier »
The earliest Arabic grammar translated into French.

Paris, 1795.

VOLNEY (Constantin François de Chasseboeuf, comte de). Simplification des langues orientales ou méthode nouvelle et facile d’apprendre les langues arabe, persane et turque, avec des caractères européens.
Paris, Imprimerie de la République, An III (1795),

8vo [216 X 127 mm] of 135 pp. and 4 plates out of pagination including 3 folding plates.
Black half-morocco, flat spine decorated with flat bands, yellow edges, (two rounded corners). Contemporary binding.

First edition of the earliest Arabic grammar written in French.

When he was 20, Volney devoted himself to the study of history and ancient languages. A six thousand books inheritance falling to him, he decided to go and visit Egypt and Syria in 1783.
Once in Egypt, he retreated into a Coptic convent for eight months to learn Arabic.

The « Traité sur la simplification des langues orientales » published in 1795, is the earliest treatise dedicated by Volney to his great works about this theme which will make him famous.

The epigraph, extracted from the Cité de Dieu of St Augustine, gives a sufficient idea of the book’s subject: “the variety of languages, said this Father of the Church, is a dividing wall between men; and the effect of this diversity is that it annuls the perfect similarity of organization that they got from nature.” The preliminary discourse is considered as a model of style, and Volney whose wide mind considered all the questions from an elevated point of view, was predicting from that moment on the complete subversion of the European colonial system, the emancipation of all America and the formation of new States intended to compete with the old ones on the Atlantic.

Considering this truth that the various signs of language have to represent the various sounds, Volney had conceived the project of a single alphabet. The means consisted in adding a few indispensable signs to the Roman alphabet and to apply it to Asian languages. This unity of alphabet was already taking away a difficulty to study them. Besides, Volney wanted to apply to eastern idioms a part of grammatical notions that we got from European languages. Making easier the study of Asian languages, he was planning to improve the business relations. It was already a big political project, but he was also seeking in the analytical study of those languages a new way to go back to the origin of the oldest nations. He claimed, according to the different characters of their idioms, to judge their knowledge of morality, legislation, literature; because the signs admitted by a nation in its language are necessarily the ones of its ideas.

The treatise contains 4 plates out of pagination illustrating the Arabic alphabet in the common order, the Arabic alphabet transposed in European characters for the use of travellers (400 x 310 mm), the conjugations and the way to describe European letters adapted to Arabic language.

An attractive copy of this philology work important for its precocity, in perfect original condition.

It comes from the collection of the count and countess Chappaz de La Prat with ex-libris with arms on paste-down, and two red owners’ stamps.

Price: €2 000

« The first printed book intended to be read by the blind”

« The first printed book intended to be read by the blind ». (Norman).
P.M.M., 292.

HAUY, Valentin. Essai sur l’éducation des aveugles, ou exposé de différens moyens, vérifiés par l’expérience, pour les mettre en état de lire, à l’aide du trait, d’imprimer des Livres dans lesquels ils puissent prendre des connaissances de Langues, d’Histoire, de Géographie, de Musique, &c., d’exécuter différens travaux relatifs aux Métiers, &c.
Paris, Imprimé par les Enfans-Aveugles, sous la direction de M. Clousier, Imprimeur du Roi, 1786.

4to [246 x 190 mm], (1) bl.l., vii pp., (1) p., pp. 1 to 111 printed with embossed characters, pp. 113 to 126, 15 pp., (1) l., (11) ff., (1) l. of observation, (3) ff. with the « Programme des exercices que les enfans-aveugles feront à Versailles » devant le roi, (3) ff., (1) bl. l. Bound in contemporary full marbled calf, spine ribbed, edges red. Binding skilfully restored.

Rare first edition of « the first printed book intended to be read by the blind ».
GM 5833; Lende p.15; PMM 292; En Français dans le texte 242; Norman 1023.

Valentin Haüy (1745-1822) wanted to make the blind read. In 1784 he created special characters that produced a raised typography. In 1786 he published the present work to expound his revolutionary method to educate the blind. The present book was printed by blind children with embossed letters.

« Valentine Haüy was the first to devise type that could be read by the blind. Characters slightly different in shape from ordinary italic were embossed on heavy paper to be read with the fingers. He founded the Institut Royale des Jeunes Aveugles in 1785 and seems actually to have succeeded in teaching some of his pupils not only to read by this method but to set and print the embossed type. His ‘Essai sur l’Education des Aveugles’, 1786, is an incunable of the method”. (PMM 292).

A good copy of this important work for the history of science, a work that symbolizes the philanthropic outburst to the underprivileged classes in 18th century France.

Price: €6 500

« The first Aerial Voyage ». (P.M.M., 229).

« The first Aerial Voyage ». (P.M.M., 229).
Paris, 1783-1784.

FAUJAS DE SAINT-FOND, Barthélémy. Description des Expériences de la Machine Aérostatique de MM. De Montgolfier, Et de celles auxquelles cette découverte a donné lieu. [Et]-Première suite de la description des expériences aérostatiques de MM. De Montgolfier.
Paris, Cuchet, 1783-1784.

2 volumes 8vo [192 x 122 mm]: XL, 299, (7) pp., 9 plates and 1 folding table ; (1) l., 366 pp., (1) l. of errata and 5 plates.
Bound in contemporary marbled calf, spine ribbed and decorated, edges red. Heads and tails of spines damaged.

First edition of « the first Aerial Voyage » (P.M.M., 229).
En Français dans le texte, 175 ; Cohen 372.

« Faujas de Saint-Fond, an eminent French scientist, was at once the sponsor of the Montgolfiers and their chronicler. He set on foot a subscription to repeat an experiment conducted by them in June 1783 when ‘a cloud enclosed in a bag’, in fact a linen globe of 105 feet circumference in which the air was heated by a straw fire, made a successful ascent at Annonay. The subscribers preferred the hydrogen-filled balloon devised by Charles. This was only 13 feet in diameter and its ascent took place from the Champs de Mars in Paris in August 1783.
This feat, however, was surpassed by the Montgolfiers in September when they successfully launched a balloon carrying a sheep, a cock and a duck, and even more sensationally in November when, after some tethered experiments, Pilâtre de Rozier, accompanied by the Marquis d’Arlandes, made the first aerial voyage in history. They ascended from the Château de la Muette in the Bois de Boulogne, sustained their flight for five-and-a-half miles across Paris and descended after twenty-five minutes on the outskirts of the city.
Faujas de Saint-Fond’s ‘Description of the Aerial Machine of MM. Montgolfier’ was the earliest record of this flight, written and published in the very year of its accomplishment. It is the first serious treatise on aerostation as a practical possibility”. (PMM 229).

The illustration consists of 14 figures of aerostatic experiments, drawn by Lorimier and engraved by De Launay and Sellier.

Complete copies preserved in their uniform contemporary bindings are rare.

Provenance: G. Goury (handwritten note: “G. Goury Ing. Des P. Et Ch.” at the beginning of the volumes).

Price: € 7 500

Flamsteed’s famous celestial atlas

Flamsteed’s famous celestial atlas.
This rare edition « is preferred to the original » (Ebert).
A precious copy with the 30 maps contemporary hand-coloured.

FLAMSTEED. Atlas céleste de Flamsteed, publié en 1776.
Paris, chez Lamarche, 1795.

Small 4to [225 x 152 mm], ix pp., (1), 47 pp. and 30 double-page maps. Bound in contemporary half-roan, edges mottled.

Precious enlarged edition of John Flamsteed’s famous celestial atlas, illustrated with 30 double-page maps.
Brown, Astronomical Atlases, Maps & Charts, p. 47; Lalande 553; Brunet II, 1280; DSB V, 22 – 26 ; Graesse, Trésor de livres rares et précieux, p. 593.

John Flamsteed is an English astronomer who was born in Derby in 1646. He died in Greenwich in 1719. He is the first astronomer of King Charles II (1657) and the manager of the Observatory of Greenwich that he founded.

Two new maps were added to the work for this French edition: the one showing the boreal celestial hemisphere and the one of the southern planisphere, both drawn by La Caille.

The present edition is the second French edition. It is of the utmost interest for astronomy because it contains very interesting additions and important modifications provided by the discoveries of the French astronomer Lalande.
Numerous stars and constellations were added to this edition.

“This edition is preferred to the original” (F.A. Ebert, A General Bibliographical Dictionary, n° 7618).

It is illustrated with 30 detailed double-page maps by C.E. Voisard after Flamsteed, showing all the astronomical constellations. All the maps were handsomely contemporary hand-coloured.

A precious copy of this sought after celestial atlas with all the maps contemporary hand-coloured.

No copy of this work in contemporary colouring is recorded in ABPC.

Price: €9 500

First edition of this work dedicated to chronology

Rare first edition of this scientific work dedicated to chronology.
A fine copy preserved in its contemporary limp vellum.

AUZOLES LAPEYRE, Jacques d’. Le Mercure charitable, ou contre-touche et souverain remède pour désempierrer le R.P. Petau jésuite d’Orléans, depuis peu métamorphosé en fausse Pierre-de-touche.
Paris, chez Gervais Alliot, 1638. Avec Privilège du roi.

Folio [350 x 230 mm], (1) bl.l., (26) pp., 346, (6), (1) bl.l. Transposition of 2 quires, some browning. Complete copy.
Bound in contemporary limp vellum, flat spine with the handwritten title.

Rare first edition of this scientific work dedicated to chronology.
(Brunet, I, 577).

The present edition is illustrated with 6 figures engraved by Jean Picart, including the famous anamorphic portrait of the author, made at Father Niceron’s request. The text is also illustrated with explanatory figures and diagrams.

A beautiful copy of this rare work preserved in its contemporary limp vellum.

Provenance: old stamp of a religious community on the title-page: Collegium Angiense Societatis Jesu.

Only one copy of this work has appeared on the international market in the last thirty years. OCLC doesn’t list any copy, the copy preserved at the British Library is missing the title-page.

Price: €8 500

The founding text of non-Euclidian geometry

Rare first edition of this founding text of non-Euclidian geometry.

PMM, 293.

LOBACHEVSKI, Nicolai Ivanovitch. Geometrische Untersuchungen zur Theorie der Parallellinien.

Berlin, G. Fincke, 1840.

8vo [188 x 113 mm], (1) title-page, 61 pp., (1) p., 2 folding plates. Some foxing. Preserved in its original green printed wrappers, lower cover renewed.

Very scarce first edition of this founding text of non-Euclidian geometry.

PMM 293; Poggendorff I, 1482; Engel 13; DSB VIII, 432 f.; Norman I, 1379.

« Gauss who had received a copy of the ‘Geometrische Untersuchungen’ from Lobachevsky, spoke to him flatteringly of the book, studied Russian especially to read his work in their original language, and supported his election to the Göttingen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften” (DSB).

« The revolution in our conception of the nature of mathematics can be traced back to the explicit formulation of the first non-Euclidian geometries early in the nineteenth century.

The researches that culminated in the discovery of non-Euclidean geometry arose from unsuccessful attempts to prove the axiom of parallels in Euclidean geometry. This postulate asserts that through any point there can be drawn one and only one straight line parallel to a given straight line. Although this statement was not regarded as self-evident and its derivation from the other axioms of geometry was repeatedly sought, no one openly challenged it as an accepted truth of the universe until Lobatchewsky published the first non-Euclidean geometry […]. In Lobatchewsky’s geometry an infinity of parallels can be drawn through a given point that never intersect a given straight line.

Nicolai Ivanovitch Lobatchewsky was born in Nizhni-Novgorod, Russia, and studied at the University of Kazan, where in 1827 he was appointed professor. His fundamental paper was read to his colleagues in Kazan in 1826 but he did not publish the results until 1829-30 when a series of five papers appeared in the Kazan University Courier, the first of which bore the title cited above, ‘The Origins of Geometry’. He amplified his findings (still in Russian) in 1836-8 under the title ‘New Elements of Geometry, with a Complete Theory of Parallels’. In 1840 he published a brief summary in Berlin under the title Geometrische Untersuchungen zur Theorie der Parallellinien”. (PMM).

The present work is the earliest obtainable book-edition presenting the new geometry.

It is illustrated with 2 folding plates of geometrical figures.

The present copy is preserved in its original green printed wrappers.

ABPC doesn’t list any copy of this work.

Part of Lobachevski’s memoir printed in 1829-1830 by the Kazan University was sold by Christie’s New York on the 29th of October 1998 for 405 000 $ (about 2 200 000 F at the time).

Price: € 35 000

First edition of this revolutionary project

First edition of this revolutionary project.
En Français dans le texte, 134.

VAUBAN, Sébastien Le Prestre, marquis de. Projet d’une dixme royale : qui supprimant la taille, les Aydes, les Douanes d’une Province à l’autre, les Décimes du Clergé, les Affaires extraordinaires ; & tous autres Impôts onéreux & non volontaires : Et diminuant le prix du sel de moitié & plus, produirait au Roy un revenu certain et suffisant, sans frais ; & sans être à charge à l’un de ses Sujets plus qu’à l’autre, qui s’augmenterait considérablement par la meilleure Culture des Terres.
[Rouen], 1707.

4to [244 x 178 mm], (1) bl.l., (4) ff., 204 pp., (10) ff. of table, (1) bl.l. and 1 large folding table.
Bound in contemporary brown calf, spine ribbed and decorated, sprinkled edges.

Rare first edition of this revolutionary project that could have changed the course of French history.
En Français dans le texte 134 ; Rahir, La Bibliothèque de l’amateur, p. 667 ; Catalogue de la bibliothèque de M. le baron Pichon, 158.

In this political work, the famous field marshal addresses to Louis XIV and recommends the creation of a fixed-rate income tax, the “dixme royale”.

Vauban’s book was attacked by the court and the edition was pulped. The importance of this work is obvious; that’s an overwhelming evidence about the economic and political situation in France at the end of the reign of Louis XIV.

A fine copy of this rare book that was forbidden and destroyed from the very beginning, preserved in its contemporary unrestored decorated binding.

Unrestored copies of the “Dixme” are very rare.

Price: €39 000