Description des courants magnétiques dessinés et graves d’après nature en XV planches, suivi de quelques observations sur l’aiman.
[BOUND WITH:] Supplément pour la description des courants magnétiques. Large 4to [24 x 19 cm], (2) ff., 52 pp., (1) f., 23 pp., with 20 folding engraved plates signed by Johannes Striedbeck. Bound in contemporary mottled calf, spine gilt in seven compartments, red morocco title label laid to spine, block-printed floral endpapers, red edges. Covers scaling from overuse of binder’s acid resulting in some chipping around spine. A few ink annotations incorporating errata, otherwise both text and illustrations are very clean. Rare first edition, complete with its separately issued supplement, of this early treatise on lines of magnetism, including an attempt to explain the origin of these forces by a theory of vortices, and illustrated with 20 folding etchings. The problem of describing and calculating what would become known as magnetic fields began to interest serious thinkers only in the latter half of the 18th century, with notable attempts by Muschenbroke (1754) and Lambert (1767). Bazin, although less of an accomplished mathematician, appears to be one of the first to fully describe these phenomena in print. Bazin’s experiments typically involved the application of a magnet, or several magnets, to a pile of iron filings on a sheet of paper; the filings arrange themselves along curved lines which Bazin describes as ‘courants’. Most of the experiments attempt to study the interaction of these lines when magnets are arranged side-by-side or in a triangular formation; others involve a series of suspended magnets, which Bazin imputes to be producing the same lines of force. Bazin notes the work of his contemporaries La Hire and Musschenbroek on quantifying magnetism, and occasionally mentions his own theories concerning a system of vortices affecting the ‘fluide magnetique’. As a natappear and physician by training, Bazin’s interest in magnets appears to have been medical in origin. OCLC notes two U.S. copies with the supplement published the following year (American Philosophical Society and Princeton) and two without (Harvard and the Smithsonian). Philippe de la Hire (1640-1718), Daniel Bernoulli (1700-82), René de Réaumur (1683-1787), Brackenhoffer, Henry Ellis (1721-1806) magnetic observations on Hudson bay voyage in search of the Northwest Passage, gilbert (50)
* Mottelay, p. 208, noting the addition of the supplement in 1754.
Price: $3,850.00