Sales catalogue 666: Henry Sotheran & Co

Date:: 20th century

Reference:: WA/HMM/CM/Sal/52/112

Credit: Sales catalogue 666: Henry Sotheran & Co. Source: Wellcome Collection.

29/76 page 27

$519 BOYLE (Hon. Robert; F.n.s.; founder of the Boyle Lectures) WorKs, edited, with Life (pp- 139), by THOMAS BIRCH, D.D., F.R.S., with portrait by Baron after Kersseboom, and numerous large copper plates, 5 vols. roy. folio, LARGE PAPER; contemporary calf extra, with bookplate and monogram (on back) of John Boyle, 5th Earl of Cork and Orrery (RARE), £3. 15s 1744 The above FINE copy belonged to the author's kinsman, Joan Boyte, STH Eart oF CorK AND ORRERY, F.R.S., the friend of Swift, Pope and Dr. Johnson; and bears his-autograph on the flyleaf. THE FIRST COMPLETE AND BEST EDITION Of Boyle's works, ‘including his posthumous remains and correspondence, with a Life [still the standard work] founded on materials collected with abortive biographical designs by Burnet and Wotton, and embracing Boyle’s unfinished narrative of his early years entitled ‘An Account of Philaretus during his ’ niunority’.’—D. N. B. 520 ——— PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS, ABRIDGED, METHODIZED, and DISPOSED, under the General Heads of Physics, Statics, Pneumatics, Natural History, Chymistry, and Medicine, with Notes, containing the Improvements made in the several Parts of natural and experimental Knowledge since his time, by PETER SHAW, M.D., with 21 copperplates, 3 vols. 4to. old calf, newly rebacked, with auto. of Egerton Leigh (writer on dialect) on title, £1. 5s 1725 521 ——— ANOTHER Copy, with fine steel portrait (inserted); nice copy in old calf gilt, £1. 7s 6d , §22 — SECOND EDITION, corrected, with fine portrait by Vertue, and 13 copperplates, 3 vols. 4to. old calf, newly rebacked, £1. 1s 1738 ‘ Boyle is the true precursor of the modern chemist. Besides cleariug away a jungle of perplexed notions, he collected a number of highly suggestive facts and observations, He was the first to distinguish definitely a mixture from a com- pounl; with him originated the definition of an ‘element’ as a hitherto undecomposed constituent of a compound ; he introduced the use of vegetable colour-tests of acidity and alkalinity . . . He, moreover, actually prepared hydrogenand collected it in a receiver placed under water ... In physics, besides the great merit of having rendered the air-pump available for experiments and discovered the law of gaseous elasticity, he invented a compressed-air pump, and directed the construction of the first hermetically sealed thermometers made in England. He sought to measure the expansive force of freezing water, first used freezing mixtures, observed the effects of atmospheric pressure on ebullition, added con- siderably to the store of facts collected about electricity and magnetisin, determined the specific gravities and refractive powers of various substances, and made a notable attempt to weigh light,’ etc. etc. etc.—Agnes M. Clerke. 523 - ANIMADVERSIONS upon Mr. HoBBES’s PROBLEMATA de VACUO, first edition, 12mo. (pp. 104), sewn (large copy), 6s 1674 524 ——— Of the CAUSE of ATTRACTION by SuCTION, a PARADOX, first edition, 12mo. (pp. 72), sewn (large copy), 5s 1674 Forming a supplement to the ‘ Animadversions.’ CERTAIN PHYSIOLOGICAL ESSAYS, and other Tracts; written at distant Times, and on several Occasions; 2nd Ed., with some Tracts enlarged by Experiments, and a Discourse about the ABSOLUTE RestT in BovIEs, er. 4to. contemporary sheep (back slightly damaged), 13s 6d 1669 Containing essays on the ‘ Unsuccessfulness of Experiments’, on ‘ Experimental Essays in General’, ‘ Chymical Expeti- ments to Illustrate the Notions of the Corpuscular Philosophy ’, ‘ History of Fluidity and Firmnesse’, etc. Essays of the STRANGE SuBTILTY, GREAT EFFicacy, and DETERMINATE NATURE of EFFLUVIUMS; with new experiments to make Fire and Flame ponderable: together with a DIscovery of the PERVIOUSNESS of GLASS, first edition, sm. Svo. jine large copy in white vellum (RARE), £1. 1s 1673 In this important work the author confirms the fact, first discovered by Jean Rey, that metals actually increase in weight after being calcined—the one sore point that did not agree with the phlogiston theory, and was explained away with a vast amount of ingenuity by its adherents. 527 —-—— EXPERIMENTS and CONSIDERATIONS touching CoLourRs, first occasionally Written, among some other Essays, to a Friend; and now suffer’d to come abroad as the beginning of an Experi- mental History of Colours, first edition, with folding plate, 12mo. CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH RED MOROCCO EXTRA, finely tooled back and sides, g. e. (a few headlines shorn, otherwise @ VERY FINE 625 — COPY); RARE, £1: 5s H. Herringman, 1664 With armorial bookplate of John Boyle, 5th Earl of Cork and Orrery, and auto. ‘OrRERY. Bought at Bath 1701’ on flyleaf. 028 ——— ANOTHER Copy, old calf (VERY FINE AND LARGE COPY), £1. ls 529 ——— ANOTHER Copy (wanting the plate, but_a very large and clean copy), sewn, 10s 6d ‘ Describing for the first time the iridescence of metallic films and soap-bubbles’.—D. N. B. It contains many interesting observations and axioms, which were completed 3 years afterwards by Newton in his work on ‘ Optics’ (q. v, post). The work also contains many recipes for mixing colours. Pp. 389-423 contain a ‘Short Account ot some Observations about a Diamond that shines in the Dark, with a Treatise wpon the score of the Affinity betwixt Light and Colours’, with a separate title-page. 530 — EXPERIMENTS and CONSIDERATIONS about the Porosity of BopIEs, in Two Essays, first edition, 12mo. sound tall copy in contemporary sheep (rare), 12s 6d : 1684 531 -—~— EXPERIMENTS, NOTES, etc., about the MECHANICAL ORIGIN or PRODUCTION of divers PARTICULAR QUALITIES, with the IMPERFECTION of the CHYMIST’S DOCTRINE of QUALITIES, and REFLECTIONS upon the HyPoTHEsIs of ALCALI and AcipUM, first edition, 8vo. sound copy in contemporary calf (RARE), £1. Is E. Flesher, 1676 Including the Mechanical Origin of Heat and Cold: Mechanical Production of Tastes: —— of Odours: Mechanical Origine and Production of Volatility: —— —— of Fixtness: — of Corrosiveness and Corrosibility : Mechanical Causes of Chynuical Precipitation : Mechanical Production of Magnetism : —— of Electricity ; each with a separate title, 532 [ —] A FREE ENQuIRy into the VULGARLY RECEIV’D NOTION of NATURE; made in an Essay, address’d to a Friend, first edition, sm. 8vo. large copy in old calf, 10s 6d 1686 Containing much of the Baco-Cartesian philosophy propagated by the author. 533 [———] The History of FLuipitry and FIRMNEsSE, 4to. (pp. 161-292), sewn (large copy), 5s [1668] 534 -— HYDROSTATICAL PARADOXES, made out by NEW EXPERIMENTS (for the most part . Physical and Easie), first edition, with 3 folding plates on copper, 12mo., fine copy in old calf, with inser. ‘ex lib: Guil. Hunt. Donum Gualt. Grubbe, 1714’ on title (RARE), £1. Is’ Oxford, 1666 ‘Enforcing, by numerous and striking experiments, the laws of fluid equilibrium,’—D. N. B. The author also demonstrates the impossibility of the ‘ fuga vacui.’$

Sales catalogue 666: Henry Sotheran & Co

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