Essai de Statique Chimique. De

A Paris:: l'Imprimerie de Demonville et Sœurs, chez Firmin Didot, Libraire pour les Mathematiques, l'Architecture, la Marine, et les Editions Stereotypes, 1803., 1803. Two volumes. 8vo. viii, 543; viii, 555, [1] pp. Moderate foxing, though a very good copy. Modern marbled boards, black morocco spine label, untrimmed, unopened. Blind stamp of Queen's College, Belfast; formerly in the library of T. R. Robinson. First edition of Berthollet's (1748-1822) famous and very important chemical study in which he expressed his fundamental concept of chemical affinity of substances as well as the law of mass action. Berthollet was one of the first to accept Lavoisier's (truncated) new theories, and he joined him in devising the chemical nomenclature. Berthollet's great service to chemistry was his realization in 1803 that the manner and rate of chemical reactions depend on more than just the attraction of one substance for another. Starting from the same hypothesis as Bergman, that chemical affinity is the same as gravity, he came to the undeniable conclusion that the forces of chemical affinity must be proportional to the masses of the acting substances. This was in direct contradiction to Bergman's assumption that affinity in independent of mass. It was this view that brought Berthollet and Proust into conflict and led to much analytical work. The controversy between them lasted for years, and by 1908 Proust's opinion had prevailed as the law of constant composition became accepted by almost all chemists. Thomas Romney Robinson (1792-1882), Irish astronomer and mathematical physicist, became president of the Royal Irish Academy 1851-56 (first elected in 1816). As a young boy, Robinson showed his brilliance as early as five years of age while composing poetry; a collection of his poems was published when he was fourteen. He gathered a substantial library relating science and natural philosophy, which evidently was acquired by Queen's College Belfast. Bolton I, p. 307; Cole, Chemical Literature 1700-1860, 122; DSB, II, pp. 73-82; Duveen, p. 75; Gregory, J. C., A Short History of Atomism, pp. 65-67; Interlibrum 305: 199; Partington III, pp. 496-516 + VI, pp. 576-759 pp.; Poggendorff I, 166. EXTRA POSTAGE WILL APPLY. (Inventory #: S3066)