Description des expériences de la machine aérostatique

Second edition statement, rare, published after the original of 1783, and illustrated with 9 plates in fine, of the aerostatic machine and the flying boat.

Bound in full limp vellum binding, reused. Smooth spine with author's name in pen and date at foot. Stains and soiling. Trace of dampstain to lower margin of frontispiece. Leaves browned at beginning of work, and several others scattered throughout bearing browning.

First and important work on aerostation. It brings together several memoirs relating the first balloon flights (On inflammable gas, Observations made by M. Jeaurat, On rubber, Accounts of the first flights at Annonay, at the Champ de Mars...) Faujas de Saint-Fond, naturalist and geologist, financially supported the research of the Montgolfier brothers, papermakers, based on Cavendish's experiments and Priestley's work on hot air. They flew two balloons at Annonay, the second with farm animals, by means of bags filled with hot air. A supplement containing other memoirs and observations, which is rarely bound with, was published in 1784.