Science, Medicine
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
Rare work of astronomy by a great French mathematician
A very rare astronomical work written in the 16th Century by François Viète,
the precursor of algebra and guardian of Catherine de Parthenay.
A very pure copy in its contemporary limp vellum.
VIETE, François. Principes de cosmographie. Tirés d’un manuscrit de Viette, & traduits en François. Corrigées & augmentées.
Rouen, Jean Behourt, 1647.
12 mo [146 x 77 mm], (8) pp., 172.
Bound in contemporary limp vellum, flat spine, old handwritten calculations on covers. Light waterstain in the lower corner.
Third edition of this very rare astronomical work written in the 16th century for Catherine de Parthenay.
DSB 14, pp. 18-25.
François Viète (1540-1603) follows courses of law at the University of Poitiers, where he obtains his degree in 1560. Few years later, he decides to leave the bar in order to become the guardian of Catherine de Parthenay. At this time he is particularly interested in astronomy, and he writes his first scientific work for his pupil. The Principes de cosmographie are the only reading he made to his pupil that survived, in a French translation; they were published for the first time in 1637.
Catherine de Parthenay is the heiress of a powerful Huguenot family, the Parthenay-Lévêque. She is interested in astrology and astronomy, and when she is eleven years old, her mother gives her François Viète as guardian, one of the greatest mathematicians of that time. Viète will stay her adviser and friend during all her life.
The present work is divided into three parts: the Traicté de la sphere from pp. 1 to 24, illustrated with 2 figures in the text, the Elémens de géographie from pp. 25 to 144, where Viète describes the countries of the world, and Elémens d’astronomie, from pp. 145 to 172, where he deals with stars and planets.
Viète financed his own writings and he only printed his books in a very limited number of copies for his friends. That’s the reason why his books are so rare.
He is considered as the main precursor to algebra. He was the first one to represent the parameters of an equation with letters. His writings influenced Descartes, Harriot, but also Newton and Leibniz.
The present edition is the rarest of this book.
OCLC records 2 copies of the first edition dated 1637, 5 copies of the 1643 edition and only 1 copy of this edition, preserved at the Burndy Library.
The B.n.F. is the only French library to own this 1647 edition.
No copy is listed in ABPC.
A very pure copy of this rare and sought-after astronomical work, preserved in its contemporary limp vellum.
Price: € 12 000
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
A decisive work in science history
First edition, first issue, of Claude Bernard’s « decisive work »
that « marks a turning point in science history ».
(En Français dans le texte 288).
PMM 353.
Bernard, Claude. Introduction à l’Etude de la Médecine Expérimentale.
Paris, J. B. Baillière, 1865.
8vo [210 x 130 mm], 400 pp.; bound in contemporary green half-roan, flat spine decorated with gilt fillets, mottled edges. Head of spine slightly rubbed. Owner’s stamp on the first 3 leaves.
First edition, first issue, of claude bernard’s “decisive work”. (Dictionnaire des Œuvres, III, p. 734).
PMM 353 ; En Français dans le texte 288 ; Garrison-Morton 1766.501 ; Grolier, 100 Books famous in Science, 11b ; Norman 206.
« The introduction is a decisive work. When it was published, it was perfectly answering numerous questions concerning a medical science which was trying to find itself since Corvisart and that was involved in the fight of dogmatic systems, and was learning since, the precisions made about clinical observation and anatamo-pathology, the requirements of the physiology laboratories, of medical chemistry and histology […]. Claude bernard, for whom methodology was a constant concern, gave a coherent status to this medicine. He justified his experimental inclinations and established its bounds. From this moment, thanks to claude bernard, we can talk about an experimental medicine. However, the great physiologist’s work has a significance that goes beyond this discipline. His discoveries are valid for every scientific research fields. […].
The introduction is a revolutionary work as much as the ‘discours de la méthode’, well-known by the scholar. »
Dictionnaire des Œuvres.
« When he came to Paris, Claude Bernard found his real vocation near F. Magendie: the study of vital functions with the experimental method. Before him, this method was barely used and in a non-systematic way. It permitted him to discover chemical and nervous vital phenomena unsuspected until this time […]. Concise and with a brilliant clearness, associating a personal adventure with great philosophical and scientific questions, this book marks a turning point in science history. Within, he sets out and details the “experimental reasoning” and establishes the notions of inner environment and biological determinism. The Introduction ‘is for us what was for the 17th and the 18th centuries the Discours de la Méthode’ (H. Bergson); it is ‘an everlasting book, a bible of scientific probity’ (J. Rostand) ».
En Français dans le texte, 288.
« The Introduction was an important didactic work which biologists of the last hundred years have found of great interest and value ». (PMM).
« Probably the greatest classic on the principles of physiological investigation and of the scientific method as applied to the life sciences” (Garrison-Morton).
This copy bears the marks of the first issue: on page 400, there is the printer’s name Crété (the name Crété is replaced by Martinet in the second issue), and the names of the five branches of Baillière throughout the world appear on the title-page (only 3 names appear in the second issue).
A fine copy without any foxing, preserved in its fine contemporary green half-roan binding.
Provenance : ex libris Bibliothèque Charpentier on the endpaper.
Price: € 2 500
First edition of a foundind work of the theory of probability
First edition of a fundamental work in the history of mathematics,
one of the founding texts of the theory of probability by the “French Newton”.
LAPLACE, Pierre Simon; marquis de. Théorie analytique des probabilités ; par M. le comte de Laplace… [With:] supplement [Premier-Deuxième-Troisième].
Paris, Mme Ve Courcier, 1812 [-1820].
4 to [254 x 203 mm], (3) ff., 464 pp., (1) l. of errata, 34 pp., 50 pp., 36 pp. Some foxing
Bound in contemporary aubergine straight-grained half-morocco, flat spine decorated with gilt fillets. Corners and joints rubbed. Binding worn.
First edition of one of the founding works of the theory of probability.
DSB XV, 367-376; UC Berkely, First Editions of Epochal Achievements (1934), 12; Stigler, History of Statistics, pp. 146-148.
“The ‘Théorie analytique des Probabilités’ contains besides an introduction two books and four supplements: Book I. Du calcul des Fonctions génératrices; Book II. Théorie générale des Probabilités ; first supplement, composed in 1816. Sur l’Application du calcul des Probabilités à la philosophie naturelle ; second supplement, composed in 1817. Sur l’Application du calcul des Probabilités aux opérations géodésiques, et sur la Probabilité des résultats déduits d’un grand nombre d’observations ; third supplement, composed in 1819. Application des formules géodésiques de Probabilité à la Méridienne de France. It is in this publication that Laplace expounded his beautiful theory of the generative functions.”
(Hoefer, Nouvelle biographie générale, 547).
“Pierre Simon Laplace was born in Normandy on the 23rd of March 1749 and died in Arcueil on the 5th of March 1827. He was so talented for analysis that he was called “the French Newton”; he paid particular attention to the great problem of universal gravitation and motion of the celestial bodies.
Like Lagrange, he attained remarkable results in this field, proving the stability of the solar system and making notables discoveries, which were recorded in the reports of the Académie des Sciences from 1784 […]. In the ‘Théorie analytique’ (1812) Laplace gave a classical form to the calculation of probabilities.” (Dictionnaire des auteurs, III, 40).
Laplace who had carried out his first works about probabilities between 1771 and 1774 published his ‘Théorie analytique des probabilités’ in 1812.
In this work Laplace gives decisive elements for the theory of probabilities, for which he is considered as one of the founders.
As a direct heir to Newton in the field of celestial mechanics, Laplace may also be considered as the heir of Pascal in the field of calculation of probabilities as thanks to his works this subject has acquired a new power.
“In the ‘theorie’ Laplace gave a new level of mathematical foundation and development both to probability theory and to mathematical statistics.
‘Theorie Analytique des probabilités’. First publication: Paris, Courcier, 1812. 465 pages. Print-run : 1200 copies.
Pierre Simon Laplace published the first edition of ‘Théorie analytique’ in 1812, at the age of 63 years. It represented the culmination of a professional lifetime of concern for the topic, and all of its text consisted of reworked versions of his earlier work. Laplace’s prodigious abilities in the mathematical sciences were recognized early on, by his teachers in Normandy and by Jean d’Alembert in Paris when he was only 20.”
(Landmark writings in Western Mathematics, 1640-1940, p.329).
« Laplace has been called the ‘Newton of France’… He was the son of a small farmer in Normandy. Some rich neighbours recognized his talents and helped with his education. Arriving in Paris at the age of eighteen he met d’Alembert, who secured for him a position as professor of mathematics at the Ecole Militaire, and he soon became a member of the Académie des Sciences […]
Laplace’s other mathematical work included the ‘Théorie Analytique des Probabilités’, 1812, and a treatise on the attraction of spheroids. Laplace’s co-efficients are important in the theory of attraction, hydrodynamics and electrical science.” (PMM, 252).
Precious copy of this fundamental work in the history of mathematics.
The present book is extremely rare on the market.
Only one copy of this first edition appeared on the public market since over 30 years, the Honeyman copy which included only the first supplement and that was sold by Sotheby’s London in May 1980.
Only two copies complete with the supplements are recorded in French public institutions: at the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève of Paris and at the Bibliothèque de Toulouse.
The copy of this original edition preserved at the B.n.F. does not include any of the three supplements.
Price: € 35 000
« 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