The Principles and Methods of Geometrical Optics Especially as Applied to the Theory of Optical Instruments.

xxiii, 626 pp; 170 text figures. Original 1/4-leather and marbled boards. Frayed at top & bottom of spine. Edges of boards and corners of covers worn. Ink stamp of Department of Physics, University of Toronto on p. 1. Good. First Edition. Southall wrote in his Preface: "At present . . . it can hardly be gainsaid that the great province of applied optics is almost exclusively German territory; so that not only is it a fact that nearly all of the extraordinary developments of modern times in both the theory and construction of optical instruments are of German origin , but it is equally true also that until at least quite recently there was actually no treatise on Optics in the English language where the student could find, for example, hardly so much as a reference to the remarkable theories of PETZVAL, SEIDEL and ABBE-to mention only such names as are inseparably associated with the theory of optical imagery. Partly with the object of supplying this deficiency, and partly also in the hope (if I may venture to express it) of rekindling among the English-speaking nations interest in a study not only abundantly worthy for its own sake and undeservedly neglected, but still capable, under good cultivation, of yielding results of far reaching importance in nearly every field of scientific research, I have prepared the following work, wherein my endeavour has been to lay before the reader a connected exposition of the principles and methods of Geometrical Optics, especially such as are applicable to the theory of optical instruments" (pp. v-vi). "His two specialties were geometrical optics and physiological optics. He wrote Principles of Geometrical Optics in 1910 [offered here] and Mirrors, Prisms and Lenses (1918, rev. eds. 1923, 1934). But he is probably best known as editor of the American edition of Helmholtz's Physiological Optics (1924 25). He also wrote Introduction to Physiological Optics (1941). He wrote many papers, a number of which appeared in Journal of the Optical Society of America, on optical illusions and geometrical optics. He served as president of the Optical Society of America in 1921" (Wikipedia).…