(1) On the electricity excited by the mere contact of conducting substances of different kinds. (2) Investigation of the powers of the prismatic colours to heat and illuminate objects. . .
Publisher Information: London: 1800.
Invention of the Electric Battery
Discovery of the Infra-Red Rays
Volta, Alessandro (1747-1827). (1) On the electricity excited by the mere contact of conducting substances of different kinds. In: Philosophical Transactions 90, part 2 (1800), pp. 403-31. Folding plate (famous illustration of voltaic pile). With: Herschel, Frederick William (1738-1822). (2) Investigation of the powers of the prismatic colours to heat and illuminate objects. Experiments on the refrangibility of the invisible rays of the sun. Experiments on the solar, and on the terrestrial rays that occasion heat. In: ibid., pp. 255-326; 437-538. 12 folding plates. Whole volume, 4to. vi, 238, 26, [4], 239-436, [4], 437-732, [8]pp. 33 plates. London: W. Bulmer for Peter Elmsly, 1800. 218 x 164 mm. Modern quarter morocco in period style. Light foxing, offsetting and toning, title leaf repaired, margins trimmed causing the loss of several plate numbers but not otherwise affecting the images or text. Very good copy. Faint embossed library stamp on title and last few leaves.
(1) First Edition. Volta's epochal paper (in French), describing the voltaic pile, the first electric battery. In his paper, addressed to Sir Joseph Banks at the Royal Society, Volta described two types of battery (the pile and the "crown of cups" filled with salty or alkaline water and connected by bimetallic arcs), and, in a rebuttal to the Galvanists, represented his apparatus as being fundamentally the same as the natural electricity-producing organs of the torpedo fish. By providing a source of continuous, controllable electric current, Volta's battery revolutionized the theory and practice of electricity. The voltaic pile made possible the experiments leading to the decomposition of water, electro-deposition of metal, and creation of the electro-magnet, initiating the electrical age. Printing and the Mind of Man 255. Horblit 37b. Dibner 60.
(2) First Editions of Herschel's three papers announcing his discovery of infra-red rays. Herschel "made some delicate experiments at one end of the spectrum with a thermometer and discovered that when sunlight was refracted by a prism, invisible heat-rays fell outside the visible spectrum, being less refracted than red light. He had, in fact, discovered the infra-red rays" (Printing and the Mind of Man). Printing and the Mind of Man 254.
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