POPE, Thomas

A Treatise on Bridge Architecture in which the Superior Advantages of the Flying Pendent Lever Bridge are fully proved. With an Historical Account and Description of Different Bridges erected in Various Parts of the World, from an early Period, down to the Present Time.

17 engraved plates (frontis. partly detached). 9 p.l., [ix]-xxxii, 33-288 pp. (final plate & last four leaves in facsimile). 8vo, attractive modern paper-backed blue boards (minor browning & foxing), uncut. New York, A. Niven, 1811. First edition of the first American treatise on bridge building. It "was written by Thomas Pope, self-styled architect and landscape gardener. He seems also to have been a ship-builder and was thus interested in the construction of timber bridges. Much of the book is devoted to a world history of bridges citing an astonishingly wide range of sources from Martinelli (on the great Roman bridge at Narni) to Couplet, Hutton and Perronet and describing such famous structures as Westminster, Wettingen, Sunderland, London, Coalbrookdale and Rialto bridges as well as bridges in Africa, China, Asia and of course, America. However, the volume serves primarily as a vehicle for Pope's own remarkable, if somewhat visionary, bridge design ('a more remarkable invention for bridges than has ever before been recorded in history'). He took out a patent in 1807 for a 'flying pendent lever bridge' made up of interlocking timber voussoirs (reminiscent of an earlier design by Montucla which Pope illustrates) to form a cantilevered arch curved on plan. Pope had built a scale model of the structure and intended to build the actual bridge with an 1800 foot span across the East River. However, he was not taken seriously and in 1811 submitted an 432 foot span version for crossing the Schuylkill at Philadelphia. Although Lewis Wernwag got the job, building his famous 'Colossus' bridge, he nevertheless had to modify his design so as not to infringe Pope's patent."­Elton, Cat. 9, 104. Very good copy. The final plate and last four leaves are in quite good facsimile. Ex Bibliotheca Mechanica. Roberts & Trent, Bibliotheca Mechanica, pp. 264-65.

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• libraire: Jonathan A. Hill, Bookseller, Inc. (USA)