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Lot 233

BOYLE (ROBERT)
New Experiments Physico-Mechanical, Touching the Spring of the Air, and its Effects... in a New Pnuematical [sic] Engine, 3 parts in 1 vol., Miles Flescher for Richard Davis, 1682

25 March 2015, 11:00 GMT
London, Knightsbridge

£1,000 - £1,500

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BOYLE (ROBERT)

New Experiments Physico-Mechanical, Touching the Spring of the Air, and its Effects... in a New Pnuematical [sic] Engine, 3 parts in 1 vol., third edition, 2 engraved plates (one folding), light browning, first gathering working loose and final 4 leaves softened and chipped at upper inner corner, first plate chipped at head, 2 leaves of "To the Reader" transposed, contemporary sheep, defective [Wing B4000; Fulton 15; cf. PMM 143], 4to (195 x 160mm.), Miles Flescher for Richard Davis, 1682

Footnotes

"Boyle's New Experiments Physico-Mechanical... recounted experiments using a vacuum chamber or 'air pump' which he constructed with the assistance of Hooke. Rejecting the scholastic notion that nature could not tolerate a vacuum, he showed how it was perfectly possible to produce one, and this enabled him to illustrate the characteristics and functions of the air by studying the effects of its withdrawal on flame, light, and living creatures. He also argued that certain characteristics of the air could only be explained in terms of the ingenious hypothesis that it had a certain weight and 'spring'" (ODNB).

Provenance: Thomas Harrison of Queen's College, Cambridge (probably the Secretary of the Royal Institution who was an anti-slavery campaigner, 1771-1824), bookplate.

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