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2 books bound in 1 volume. Thick 8vo. xv, [1], 562; iv, 178, [2] pp. 9 engraved folding plates (incl. frontis.), engraved 2nd frontis., errata slip; occasional minor dampstaining at top edge, minor foxing. Contemporary half calf, marbled boards, gilt spine, gilt -stamped black leather spine label; extremities rubbed. Very good. Rare. FIRST EDITION of Leslie's two most important works, bound as one. "Leslie's Experimental Inquiry (1804) established several fundamental laws of heat radiation: that the emissivity and absorptivity for any surface are equal, that the emissivity of a surface increases with the decrease of reflectivity, and that the intensity of heat radiated from a surface is proportional to the sine of the angle of the rays to the surface. The book also played a major role in the early nineteenth-century argument about whether heat was a form of matter or a mode of motion." â Â" DSB, VII, p. 261. / A Short Account of Experiments and Instruments. . . (1813) describes, among other things, Leslie's achievement of artificial congelation using sulfuric acidâ Â"the first time anyone ever artificially froze water. / Sir John Leslie (1766-1832), mathematician and natural philosopher, studied at St. Andrews and Edinburgh, he began teaching, including members of the Wedgwood family, even taking a year in Virginia, then to London and Holland. He was a frequent traveler throughout his life. During his tours through northern Germany and Switzerland he found value in studying glaciers. "The result of his researches appeared in 1804 in his 'Experimental Inquiry into the Nature and Properties of Heat,' dedicated to his friend Thomas Wedgwood. It is an important contribution to the scientific study of the subject; the experimental methods and results were sound and fruitful, and at the same time attractively simple; and his hypotheses based thereon, though proved inadequate by later discoveries, were nevertheless a substantial advance on those current at the time. It is by his discoveries in relation to the radiation of heat, first announced in this volume, that the name of Leslie is now most widely known. His work obtained speedy recognition from the Royal Society of London, which awarded him the Rumford medal in 1805." [DNB]. REFERENCES: Cardwell, From Watt to Clausius, pp. 107-112; Roberts & Trent, Bibliotheca Mechanica, p. 203. NOTE: The plates in the first volume are bound in this sequence: I (frontis.); II: p. 514; III: p.520; IV: p. 284; V: p. 436; VI: p. 424; VII: 426; VIII: p. 469; IX: p. 490.
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