[Physics] Desaguliers, J.Th. De natuurkunde uit ondervindingen opgemaakt

Uit het Engels vertaald door een liefhebber der natuurkunde. Amst., I. Tirion, 1751, 3 vols., (26),483,(23); (16),510,(2); (8),250,(66) p., w. 114 fold. engr. plates, cont. hcalf w. ribbed and gilt spines, 4to. All vols. foxed/ browned in places. Spine-ends chipped/ sl. dam. Good, untrimmed copy.

Bierens de Haan 1178-1180; DSB IV, p. 43-46. The first 2 vols. are re-issues from the editions 1736 and 1746. John Theophilus Desaguliers (1683-1744), natural philosopher, born at La Rochelle, France and being a Huguenot he fled (in a barrel) with his father to England after the revocation of the edict of Nantes. He was a prominent freemason, becoming in 1719 third grandmaster of the grand lodge of England. The fine and instructive plates in this work on practical mechanics, depict all kinds of inventions such as pumps, barometers, clocks, hoisting machines, etc. "Desaguliers continued to furnish the society with experiments until his death. (...) between 1716 and 1742 he contributed no fewer than fifty-two papers to the Philosophical Transactions, the earlier ones chiefly on optics and mechanics, the later ones on electricity." (DSB). (total 3)