LAVOISIER, Antoine Laurent.

Elements of Chemistry, in a New Systematic Order, containing All the Modern Discoveries...

Translated from the French, by Robert Kerr. Two folding printed tables & 13 folding engraved plates (plate 11 with short tear carefully repaired). l [i.e., 50], 511 pp. 8vo, cont. blue-paper boards, nicely rebacked with old paper, uncut. Edinburgh: W. Creech, 1790. First edition in English of the first edition of the Traité “and the only one on which all English and American editions are based. This careful translation introduced English-speaking chemists to Lavoisier’s epoch-making theories. The Scottish translator Robert Kerr (1755-1813), an ardent supporter of Lavoisier’s antiphlogistic chemistry, states in his advertisement (p. viii): ‘A few explanatory notes are added [and] some parenthetical expressions, only relative to the subject, which, in their original place, tended to confuse the sense.’ Some alterations have been made in the tables in the appendix to accommodate the English reader: e.g., rules for converting French weights and measures are added and temperatures are given in degrees Fahrenheit.”–Neville, II, p. 24. “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. Very good uncut copy with half-title, preserved in a box. ❧ Cole 782. Duveen & Klickstein 163.

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