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Treatise by the favourite astronomer of King Louis XV on a wide range of subjects

LE MONNIER, Pierre-Charles.
Mémoires concernant diverses questions d'astronomie et de physique. Lûs et communiqués à l'Académie Royale des Sciences, &c.

With woodcut vignette on title, woodcut head-and tailpieces and one engraved folding plate with 3 illustrations of eclipses, signed Y. le Gouaz.

With woodcut vignette on title, woodcut head-and tailpieces and one engraved folding plate with 3 illustrations of eclipses, signed Y. le Gouaz.

With woodcut vignette on title, woodcut head-and tailpieces and one engraved folding plate with 3 illustrations of eclipses, signed Y. le Gouaz.



Paris, Imprimerie Royale, 1781. 4to. Modern half brown mottled calf, spine gilt, red morocco title label lettered in gold. With woodcut vignette on title, woodcut head-and tailpieces and one engraved folding plate with 3 illustrations of eclipses, signed Y. le Gouaz. VIII, XXIV, 34 pp.

First edition of a treatise concerning diverse matters of astronomy and physics, written by the famous astronomer Pierre-Charles Le Monnier (1715-1799). The work contains an introduction (pp. I-VIII), followed by a short history of the progress of discoveries relating to the gravity of air, with reflexions on the incline of rivers and especially of the Seine (pp. I-XIII), an extract of observations made in Paris and Rouen, to verify the incline of the Seine (pp. XIV-XXIV), a part on the eclipse with total obscurity and physical phenomenons in relation to the lunar atmosphere, observed on 24 June 1778 (pp. 1-8), an observation of the complete eclipse made on the same date on the ship Espagne, around Cap Saint-Vincent at the Islands of Tercères, by Don Antonio de Ulloa, famous Spanish scientist who was the only scientist to observe this eclipse from the sea, and who adressed his treatise to Le Monnier (pp. 9-19), and a part on the horizontal refraction of the sun, seen at Nova Zembla at the end of the XVIth century (pp. 20-34). Three further parts were published in 1788.
Le Monnier was an important astronomer of the 18th century and the favourite astronomer of King Louis XV, from whom he received the best astronomical instruments for his research. In 1736, he had the fortune to participate in the expedition of Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis to Lapland (1736-1737).

Fine copy.
Sabin 40010; Houzeau & Lancaster, Bibliographie Générale de l' Astronomie, 3518; DSB 8, p. 178-9.

Related Subjects: Astronomy & Cosmography  Cartography  France  Physics 

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