Basel: [colophon:] Hieronymus Froben and Nicolaus Bischof, March 1556. First edition, the Harrison D. Horblit copy, of the “first systematic treatise on mining and metallurgy and one of the first technological books of modern times” (PMM). “The twelve books of Agricola’s treatise … embrace everything connected with Renaissance mining and..... More
Item #5490

Leipzig: Leopold Voss, 1827. First edition, rare, especially in original boards as here, of von Baer’s landmark paper, in which he announced the discovery of the mammalian ovum. The idea that all animals begin as eggs had been current at least since the seventeenth century, when William Harvey, in his..... More
Item #4787

Basel: Impensis Thurnisiorum Fratum, 1713. First edition, a very fine copy, rare in this condition. “Jakob 1 Bernoulli’s posthumous treatise, edited by his nephew [Nicholas I Bernoulli], (the title literally means “the art of [dice] throwing”) was the first significant book on probability theory: it set forth the fundamental principles..... More
Item #5805

Rome: typis Komarek in via Cursis, 1745. First edition, very rare, of the first published statement of Boscovich’s universal force law, the basis of his atomic theory of matter, which prefigures much of his masterpiece Philosophiae Naturalis Theoria Redacta ad Unicam Legem Virium in Natura Existentium (1758) – at the..... More
Item #5520

Paris: Giraudet for Bachelier, 1824. First edition, very rare, and a fine copy in original state, of Carnot’s only published work, which led directly to the first and second laws of thermodynamics. “Carnot, one of the most original thinkers among physical scientists, applied himself to the analysis of the cyclical..... More
Item #4836

Paris: Béthune and Plon for Susse frères and Delloye, 1839. First edition, the true first issue (see below), of Daguerre’s exposition of his photographic process, “the beginnings of photography” (Horblit); this is an excellent unrestored copy in original printed wrappers, and very rare in this condition. “Perhaps no other invention..... More
Item #5602

Paris: [Chardon for] Cuchet, 1783-1784. First edition, second issue of the first volume (with the four-page supplement), of the first full-length account of the historic experiments with balloon flight conducted by the Montgolfier brothers in 1783, and “the first serious treatise on aerostation as a practical possibility” (PMM). The Montgolfier..... More
Item #5411

London: Printed for Dan Brown, Tim. Goodwin, John Walthoe, Tho. Newborough, John Nicholson, Tho. Benskin, Benj. Tooke, Dan. Midwinter, Tho. Leigh, and Francis Coggan, 1704-10. First edition of perhaps the most important single source for the history of science and engineering at the end of the scientific revolution. Its emphasis..... More
Item #5408

Paris: Dentu [&] the author, 1809. First edition, an extremely important association copy with extensive contemporary learned and critical annotations by a prestigious scientist and colleague of Lamarck. This was his most complete presentation of his theory of evolution, “a classic in the literature of evolutionary theory” (PMM). This copy..... More
Item #5541

Augsburg: Christoph Peter Detleffsen for the widow of Eberhard Klett, 1760. First edition, very rare, and the finest copy we have seen, of the foundation work of photometry, the measurement of the intensity of light, both objectively and as perceived by the eye; this is one of the rarest of..... More
Item #5873

Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1895. First edition, the copy of The Garden Ltd., of Lorentz’s major work on the electrodynamics of moving bodies “which soon became a classic” (Schaffner, p. 503). It was in this work that he introduced the concept of ‘local time’, a “major discovery” (Hoffmann, p. 86), and..... More
Item #4924

[London: Macmillan, 1939]. First edition, extremely rare offprints, of the discovery of nuclear fission, a process which had been observed by Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann the previous year but for which they were unable to provide an explanation. “In the late 1930s, a series of experiments showed that bombarding..... More
Item #5185

Venice: Remondini, 1761. First edition, first issue, a very fine copy, of “one of the most important [works] in the history of medicine” (Garrison & Morton). “After Antonio Benivieni (1443-1502), Giovanni Battista Morgagni is considered the founder of pathological anatomy. His ‘De sedibus’, regarded as one of the most important..... More
Item #5608