Lectures on Select Subjects in Mechanics, Hydrostatics, Hydraulics, Pneumatics, and Optics. With The Use of the Globes, The Art of Dialling, and The Calculation of the Mean Times of New and Full Moons and Eclipses. [Bound with:] A Supplement to the

FERGUSON, James:

Edité par Preceding Lectures London: Printed for W Strahan J Rivington and Sons and others: Sixth edition, London, 1786

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8vo., xiv, 402pp. + 48pp., half-title present, with 36 finely engraved folding plates (complete) of scientific phenomena such as eyes, air pumps, globes, cranes, sun dials , marbled endpapers, bound in contemporary speckled calf, professionally and skilfully rebacked with the original morocco title label neatly relaid. An unusally VG+ clean tightly bound copy with all the plates in nice condition. Sixth edition of Ferguson s valuable lectures, for many years a standard work on the mechanical sciences. Ferguson (1710-1776), astronomer, instrument-maker and accomplished public lecturer, was a great proponent of Newtonian philosophy. He published several technical papers on eclipses, celestial globes and horological instruments. His models of the solar system were classics of engineering designs whose accuracy far surpassed anything previously available (DSB IV, p. 565). Included in this work is the supplement, containing additional plates not found in the first edition. James Ferguson (1710-76), astronomer, instrument maker, lecturer, natural and experimental philosopher, was born at Core of Mayen, near Rothiemay in Banffshire, Scotland. Ferguson was a remarkable talent, a Scottish astronomer who, despite never receiving formal training, became famed for his travelling lectures and easy-to-understand works on the basics of astronomy. Ferguson learned mechanics at a very early age and developed an interest in stargazing while working as a shepherd in the Scottish highlands. These interests, as well as an innate skill for draughtsmanship, were encouraged by his father and others but due to lack of funds he was unable to pursue study at one of the major universities in Scotland. Nevertheless, he was able to use his skills to produce mechanical devices such as orreries (an early piece of equipment used to demonstrate the movements of the planets), clocks and globes and earned a steady living painting portrait miniatures with India ink. Ferguson would go on to publish easy-to-follow guides on astronomy, mechanics and electricity. This was a remarkably useful enterprise: it allowed ordinary people without formal mathematical training to understand the works of Newton and helped support the vogue for amateur science that was taking place in the mid eighteenth century. His breakthrough came with the publication of Astronomy explained upon Sir Isaac Newton's Principles (1756), which was so popular it required a second edition a year later.

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Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Lectures on Select Subjects in Mechanics, Hydrostatics, Hydraulics, Pneumatics, and Optics. With The Use of the Globes, The Art of Dialling, and The Calculation of the Mean Times of New and Full Moons and Eclipses. [Bound with:] A Supplement to the
• Éditeur: Preceding Lectures London: Printed for W Strahan J Rivington and Sons and others: Sixth edition, London
• Date de parution: 1786
• Langue: anglais
• Reliure: Hardcover
• Édition: 5th or later Edition, Illustrated Editio
• État de l'article: Very Good
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • Physical Sciences
  • Fine Bindings
  • Science
  • Antiquarian
  • Astronomy