Traité Chimque de l'Air et du Feu...Avec une introduction de Torbern Bergman…Ouvrage traduit de l’Allemand, par le Baron de Dieterich [sic]

One folding engraved plate. xliv, [45]-268 pp. 12mo, cont. mottled calf, spine gilt, brown morocco lettering piece on spine. Paris: Rue et Hôtel Serpente, 1781.

[with]:

—. Supplement…contenant un Tableau abrégé des Nouvelles Découvertes sur les Diverses Espèces d’Air, par Jean-Godefroi Léonhardy; des Notes de M. Richard Kirwan, & une Lettre du Docteur Priestley à ce Chimiste anglois, sur l’Ouvrage de M. Scheele; traduit et augmenté de notes…par M. le Baron de Dietrich.

xiv, [2], [13]-214 pp. 12mo, cont. mottled calf (head of spine worn & foot chipped, one corner a little worn), spine gilt, brown morocco lettering (truncated) piece on spine (binding not quite uniform with above). Paris: Rue et Hotel Serpente, 1785.

First edition in French of Scheele’s famous treatise describing his independent discovery of oxygen. The translator was Baron P.F. de Dietrich (1748–1793), a distinguished scientist who became mayor of Strasbourg at the outset of the French Revolution and was later executed. His notes are added at the end of the volume. Lavoisier submitted a favorable report to the Académie des Sciences on this translation (see Duveen & Klickstein 61) and, with Berthollet, applied for the printing privilege.

Partington calls the book “very rare,” and it is even rarer with the supplement, published four years later, in which are incorporated the additions to the second German edition of 1782, viz. Leonhard’s survey of the new discoveries on gases (with additions and notes by the translator), remarks by Kirwan, a letter by Priestley, Scheele’s treatise on the amount of “air pur” (oxygen) in the atmosphere, and indexes.

A very good set. Bookplates of J. Laissus.

❧ Cole 1165 & 1166. Duveen p. 533–(lacks Supplement). Neville II, p. 431. Partington III, p. 211, no. VII A and B. See Dibner, Heralds of Science, 41 and Horblit 92 for the first edition. (Inventory #: 2318)