A Treatise on the Nature and Properties of Air, and other Permanently Elastic Fluids. To which is prefixed, an Introduction to Chymistry.
Three folding engraved plates of apparatus & a folding table. xii, 835, [9] pp. Large 4to, good antique half-calf (some foxing & browning), spine gilt, red morocco lettering piece on spine. London: Printed for the Author, 1781.
First edition. With this book, “Cavallo switched his attention to the physics of the atmosphere and to the constitution of ‘permanently elastic fluids.’ Again his strengths appeared in instrumentation — an improved air pump and a modified eudiometer — and in smoothing the way for others. This time his course of self-instruction…was a judicious examination of contemporary work, particularly Priestley’s, presented from a nondogmatic phlogistic point of view. He always retained a lively interest in pneumatic physics and chemistry, whose applications to ballooning and to medicine became subjects of two later books.”–D.S.B., III, p. 153. Cavallo, while accepting the phlogiston theory, quotes Lavoisier’s views as well.
In this work, Cavallo also describes extensions of the experiments of Ingen-Housz on the influence of light on the growth of plants. Cavallo (1749-1809), the son of a Neapolitan physician, did all his scientific work in England and became a member of the Royal Society in 1779.
A very good copy. Gatherings N to P with spotting.
❧ Cole 236. Duveen, pp. 127-28. Partington, III, p. 300.
Price: $1,250.00
Item ID: 3227
