Paris

First edition.
Contemporary half navy blue sheep bindings, smooth spines decorated with quintuple gilt fillets, gilt friezes at tail, small lacks to headcaps of both volumes and to spine of second volume, marbled paper boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, corners of second volume bumped, speckled edges, contemporary bindings.
Some light foxing.
Rare.

First edition, illustrated with a title vignette, 6 folding maps and 2 folding plates (sun and moon positions, diagrams); a map of the coasts of Acadia and Isle Royale, one of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, plan of Canseau harbor, the southeastern coasts of Isle Royale, plan of Chibouctou harbor, southeastern point of Acadia, 
Presentation copy with the cipher and arms of Louis XV.
Contemporary binding in full marbled and glazed brown sheep. Spine with raised bands decorated with the repeated cipher of Louis XV. Red morocco title label. Boards stamped with the gilt arms of Louis XV. Triple gilt fillet frame on boards. 2 compartments restored partially effacing the cipher. One restoration at foot. Restorations to joints and corners. 
The work is the most precise hydrographic survey of the eastern coasts of North America that had ever been accomplished. Chabert was appointed to carry out a precise survey of the coasts of Acadia whose contemporary maps were erroneous.
 The first part is an account of the voyage from Brest to Louisbourg and of Chabert's 4 expeditions to coasts foreign to France, to Newfoundland and neighboring islands. The second part contains the observations and astronomical surveys for which the work was highly esteemed and recommended to navigators by the Academy of Sciences. Following the success of the voyage, Chabert was promoted to knight of the Order of Saint-Louis

Rare French first edition in the translation by Esprit Pézenas, illustrated with 2 title vignettes and 78 folding plates representing instruments used for physics demonstrations.

Armorial copy with unidentified coat of arms.
Contemporary full porphyry sheep binding. Decorated spine with raised bands. Beige calf title label, brown sheep volume label. One lack to foot of volume I. Light lack to head compartment of volume II and to foot compartment. Split to upper joints at foot of both volumes, 1cm. Corners with leather losses, as well as to edges. The use of acid to achieve the porphyry marbling has caused certain alterations to the leather, notably on the spine, where the gold appears in relief and some epidermures to the boards. Nevertheless a good copy.
Principal exposition of Newtonian physics of which Desaguliers propagated the ideas in his work, ideas both scientific and philosophical and political. He was the first to perceive the magnitude of the Newtonian revolution both for physics and for the representation of the world. He assisted Isaac Newton, who became his friend, in his experimental work from 1713 to 1727 as demonstrator of the Royal Society, the year of Newton's death. A skilled experimenter, he then opened his own private course which the royal family attended. The prefaces of the two volumes expose the challenges of 18th century physics: the development of experimental physics alongside analytical mechanics in the first, the preliminary debates to the birth of the concept of energy in the second. Desaguliers explains that he conducts experiments, not to show curiosities but to demonstrate laws, in the manner of mathematicians, but without using mathematical formalism which repels many people. His method, copied from that of Keill, consists of building his lessons by reasoning in stages: starting from simple propositions, proving them by experiments and not by demonstrations, then elaborating more complex propositions which are then confirmed by experimentation. It is appropriate not to present experiments as "so many curious phenomena" but to "make use of them to prove a sequence of philosophical propositions in a mathematical order" in other words, not to make a "Course of Experiments" but a "Course of Experimental Physics". Desaguliers' lessons deal with mechanics and hydrostatics. The lessons concerning hydrostatics are illustrated by very precise descriptions of varied devices and diverse uses: diving bells, the Marly machine or Mr Richard Newsham's machines for extinguishing fires (which are found in the plates). An auditor of Desaguliers' courses, Abbé Nollet drew inspiration from them to write his lessons in experimental physics, but which, however, dealt more with electricity and optics.

Rare first edition, published anonymously.
Contemporary full marbled and polished calf binding. Decorated spine with raised bands. Red morocco title label. Traces of rubbing. Missing the half-title of the first part. Handsome copy.
Philosophical tale in which a young man, first raised in a cage then cast onto a desert island, is educated by nature at the age of 15. Each experience becomes a discovery, either about the world or about himself. This young man thus embodies the scientist of modern times, virgin before things. Facing nature and far from civilization, man is fundamentally good according to the novel, but nature itself is not exempt from evils that man is called upon to correct. The work thus stages an ideal nature in its relationship to man; it is like an experiment, that of the awakening of the senses and thought provoked by nature in an empty being. The second part projects the character into civilization and brings him into contact with his fellow men. In 1764, L'année littéraire suggests that the work could provide elements of response to the question of man's first knowledge: "Les amateurs de la philosophie moderne, c'est-à-dire de cette métaphysique qui veut remonter à l'origine des nos idées, débrouiller le chaos de notre être, cette sorte de lecteur sera porté à accueillir cet ouvrage..." ["Amateurs of modern philosophy, that is to say of that metaphysics which seeks to trace back to the origin of our ideas, to unravel the chaos of our being, this sort of reader will be inclined to welcome this work..."]
A novel that had a certain impact at a time when the myth of the "noble savage", reflections on education, and the nature of man occupied philosophical minds, Beaurieu succeeding like an experiment of Rousseau's theses.