Description des Expériences de la Machine Aérostatique de MM. de Montgolfier, et de celles auxquelles cette découverte a donné lieu

Book Description

Paris "et se trouve à Bruxelles": Chez De La Haye, Libraire, rue de l'Etuve, 1784. Octavo. (8 1/4 x 5 1/4 inches). 9 engraved plates, 1 folding letterpress table, some leaves unopened. (Some toning to text). Later half calf over cloth-covered boards, spine in six compartments with raised bands, morocco lettering-pieces in the second and third compartments, the others with simple repeat decoration in gilt, t.e.g. Second Brussels edition of "the first serious treatise on aerostation as a practical possibility" (PMM). The present work, a fine copy with uncut and largely unopened text, is a very early edition of the first contemporary chronicle of the first aerial voyage. In June of 1783, the Montgolfier brothers launched a balloon over Annonay. "This feat, however, was surpassed in September when they successfully launched a balloon carrying a sheep, a cock and a duck, and even more sensationally [on November 21] … when, after some tethered experiments, Pilâtre de Rozier, accompanied by the Marquis d'Arlandes, made the first aerial voyage in history. They ascended from the Château de la Muette in the Bois de Boulogne, sustained their flight for five-an-a-half miles across Paris and descended after twenty-five minutes on the outskirts of the city." (PMM pp.138-139). The experiment, which was witnessed by, amongst many others, the Dauphin and Benjamin Franklin, marks the real beginning of the history of manned flight, and the present work is the second Brussels edition of Faujas' detailed account of both the event itself and the theoretical and practical science which went into making the flights a success. On December 1, 1783, J.A.C. Charles made a much longer ascent in a hydrogen balloon of his own invention, and stayed aloft for two hours. The main features of modern balloon technology can be directly attributed to the design of this eminent scientist. Cf. Brockett 302; cf. Dibner Heralds of Science 179; cf. PMM 229; cf. Norman 769; cf. Sparrow Milestones of Science 179; cf. Tissandier 21.

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