The History and Present State of Electricity, with Original Experiments.

4to. [4], xxxii, 712, iii, [11] pp. 2 charts, 8 folding copper plates of electrical machines and apparatus, catalogue of books, index, directions to the binder, ads, specimen chart. Contemporary full calf, gilt-ruled raised bands, red leather spine label; joints cracked. Gift inscription of Frank W. Gunsaulus to the Armour Institute of Technology, July 22, 1920. Very good. Second edition (first issued in 1767), corrected and enlarged. While composing this work, which at the time of its publication was the definitive work on electrical theory and research, Priestley communicated frequently with many of the significant electrical researchers of his day, including Franklin, Bergman, Volta, John Canton, Richard Price, and William Watson. The work is both a history of the study of electricity and a collection of the author's early experiments 'prior to those of Mr. Hawkesbee," and continuing through those of Benjamin Franklin and after. Franklin, who had instigated this work, read the manuscript and made corrections. / "Priestley's electrical work is mostly sound, and much of it is brilliant. It shows him at his best. The 'History of Electricity' supplied an excellent account of previous work both treated historically and summarised systematically, and his own reflexions and experiments . . . He anticipated therein Henry Cavendish and C. A. de Coulomb in the important suggestion that the law of electric attraction is that of the inverse square, deducing this from an experiment suggestion by Franklin." DNB. / "The History and Present State of Electricity, with Original Experiments was conceived as a methodized account of previous discoveries and an assessment of contemporary electrical studies, to encourage further work on the subject. That is, the work was to be a 'history' in the Baconian sense; and as a chronicle of near-contemporary and contemporary electrical researches, lucidly and simply described, it was very successful. . .The first edition was marred by Priestley's slight access to the work of German and Scandinavian electricians (a deficiency corrected in later editions through reference to the historical accounts by Daniel Gralath in the Versuche und Abhandlungen der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Danzig)." DSB XI, pp. 141-142. / Garber makes the point that Priestley's History is a particular kind, "narrowly defined," of "the state of the field," meaning of experiments and experimentation. He focused his attention on instruments that demonstrate the operation of nature. He did not analyze 'facts' and of 'discoveries' as would be considered history recording today. PROVENANCE: Frank W. Gunsaulus (1856-1921), a noted preacher, educator, humanitarian and author, who delivered a famous speech, called the "Million Dollar Sermon", wherein he stated that he would start a school to help youth prepare for the modern age, and acted on by the Armour's gift Armour Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois (named for Joseph F. Armour, with funds from his estate, by his brother Philip D. Armour). That school merged with Lewis Institute and became known as the Illinois Institute of Technology. REFERENCES: Bakken 98, Crook S/481, Gartrell 438, Mottelay 227-8, Norman 1748; Wheeler-Gift 422a. See: Heilbron, J. L., Electricity in the 17th and 18th Centuries: A Study of Early Modern Physics, UC Press, 1979; Schofield, Robert E., The Enlightened Joseph Priestley: A Study of His Life and Work from 1773 to 1804, University Park: Penn State University Press, 2009; Garber, Elizabeth, The Language of Physics: The Calculus and the Development of Theoretical physics in Europe, 1750-1914. New York: Springer, (2001), p. 72. First Edition.

Product Info

Publisher: J. Dodsley, J. Johnson, J. Payne, & T. Cadell, 1769.

Year: 1769

Type: Used

Binding: Softcover

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