ENGELMAN, Jan

Het regt gebruik der natuur-beschouwingen : geschetst in eene verhandeling over de sneeuw figuuren

Haarlem: Izaak van der Vinne. Boek- en papierverkooper in de Warmoestraat, 1747.
8vo: [pi]2 (blank [pi]1) A--Y4 Z2, 92 leaves, pp. [4] 178 [2]. Title printed in red and black Plates: 5 folding printed tables, sectional title to plates and 29 engraved plates: tables numbered I--V (last mis-numbered IV); first plate un-numbered, followed by pls I--XVIII. Leaf size and condition: 197 x 123mm. Text slightly browned, light waterstain in corner of titlepage, outer margin of one folding table soiled and frayed, plates clean. Binding: Contemporary vellum boards, MS spine lettering. Provenance and annotation: References: Bierens de Haan 1329.
Probably a re-issue of Verhandeling over de sneeuw figuuren (1743) issued again in 1771; another issue or edition under the present title was published in 1753.
§ The first thorough investigation of the forms of snow crystals. Engelman illustrates over 400 types (four times as many as Scheuzer in his Physica Sacra), which he attempted to correlate with atmospheric conditions during the formation of the crystals. Engelman was a physician and the founder 'Natuur- en Sterrekundig Collegie' at Haarlem . From 1754 he was surveyor of the water board in Rijnland and lived at Zwanenburg and Spaarndam. OCLC locates 6 copies in the Netherlands, one in Germany (Niedersachsen) and 4 in the US, at UC Davis, Yale, Field Museum (IL) and NYPL. The other issues or editions are even rarer and not in OCLC. I have not been able to find a collation for the 1743 Verhandeling over de sneeuw figuuren, known only from Bierens de Haan (1328); he gives no details, but says the 1771 edition is a 'réimpression' and since it has the same collation as the present edition, the text of which is headed 'Verhandeling over de sneeuw figuuren,' I think they must be the same work. The only copy of the 1753 edition under the present title I can find is the Niedersächsischen Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek copy but the catalogue gives no collation.

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• ordernr.: 18144

• bookseller: Roger Gaskell (GREAT BRITAIN)