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VOLTA, ALESSANDRO. 1745-1827. "On the Electricity Excited by the Mere Contact of Conducting Substances of Different Kinds." Extracted from: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, volume 90, part II. London: W. Bulmer & Co. for Peter Elmsley, 1800. image 1
VOLTA, ALESSANDRO. 1745-1827. "On the Electricity Excited by the Mere Contact of Conducting Substances of Different Kinds." Extracted from: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, volume 90, part II. London: W. Bulmer & Co. for Peter Elmsley, 1800. image 2
Lot 52

VOLTA, ALESSANDRO. 1745-1827.
"On the Electricity Excited by the Mere Contact of Conducting Substances of Different Kinds." Extracted from: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, volume 90, part II. London: W. Bulmer & Co. for Peter Elmsley, 1800.

21 September 2015, 13:00 EDT
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VOLTA, ALESSANDRO. 1745-1827.

"On the Electricity Excited by the Mere Contact of Conducting Substances of Different Kinds." Extracted from: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, volume 90, part II. London: W. Bulmer & Co. for Peter Elmsley, 1800.
4to (270 x 214 mm). 403-431 pp, with 1 folding engraved plate by James Basire illustrating the first electric battery. Text in French. Old tan paper wrappers with some penciled notations to front wrapper. Light offsetting from folding plate, otherwise a fine copy.

FIRST EDITION of "the first announcement of the voltaic 'pile,' or electric battery" (Grolier/Horblit). "The voltaic pile revolutionized the theory and practice of electricity, so that within one hundred years of Volta's invention, more progress was made than in the two thousand four hundred years between the tentative experience of Thales and the publication of Volta's letter addressed to Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society ... The indispensability and ubiquity of electricity, in one form or another, in western civilization today emphasize sharply the fact that before 1800 human environment and existence were closer to life in ancient Egypt than to our own" (PMM). "This paper, in French, was sent by Volta to Sir Joseph Banks in London for communication to the Royal Society. In it Volta describes the pile of alternating dissimilar metals (silver and zinc) which, when moist, generated the flow of constant-current electricity. With this new force, water was decomposed, metal was electro-deposited, the electro-magnet was created and the electrical age was begun" (Dibner 60). Grolier/Horblit 37b; Norman 2164; PMM 255.

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