LAVOISIER, Antoine Laurent.

2 volumes, 8vo, pp. xliv, 386; vii, 377, (1), 2 folding printed tables and 13 folding engraved plates, drawn and engraved by Madame Lavoisier. With the half-titles. Contemporary calf-backed paste-paper boards (joints and ends of spines carefully repaired), flat spines gilt, green morocco lettering pieces on spines.

Third edition, with important additions. For the first time, the first two of the three papers Lavoisier wrote on respiration are reprinted in this work, as well as his two memoirs on transpiration, the second of which had not been previously published. “One of the great milestones in the history of chemical literature. By common consent modern chemistry begins with this work, ‘which finally freed the science from its phlogiston chains and formed the starting point of its modern progress. It may be said to have done almost as much for chemistry as Newton’s Principia did for physics’ (Zeitlinger). Lavoisier used the balance to demonstrate the weight of matter at every chemical change, defined the terms element and compound, explained combustion and the rusting of metals as a chemical combination with oxygen, and through his concept of the conservation of matter developed methods of chemical analysis. The book contains the first list of twenty-three chemical elements and their compounds” (Neville, II, p. 21). Cole 780. Duveen & Klickstein 159. Neville, II, p. 23–24.