[Rarebooks] fs: A Light in the Darkness (Gas Light, 1819)

[Joslin Hall Rare Books, ABAA]

  "The prayer of Ajax was for light;
   Through all that dark and desperate fight,
   The blackness of that noonday night".
         -Longfellow,'The Goblet of Life'


Accum, Friedrich Christian & F.W. Lampadius. "PRAKTISCHE ABHANDLUNG UBER
DAS GASLICHT, eine vollstandige Beschreibung des Apparats und der
Maschinerie, um Strassen, Hauser und Manufacturen damit zu beleuchten,
enthaltend..."

Weimar; Verlag des Gr. H.S. priv. Landes-Industrie-Comptoirs: 1819.

An expanded edition of Accum's 1815 "A Practical Treatise on Gas-Light",
first published in Germany in 1816 and apparently augmented here with
extra material and plates.

Accum's book was one of the key early studies of the practical application
of gas-lighting, perhaps the key early study. Accum, an omnivorous
researcher, undertook his work with gas-lighting at the behest of the
London Gas-Light Company and he presented his findings, which he would
then enlarge in this book, to Parliament. He begins his text by exploring
other facets of illumination and lighting such as candles, the burning
properties of tallow, theories of combustion and the working of flame. He
then minutely describes the theory and practice of gas-lighting as it was
then being developed, including much technical material as well as general
remarks on its advantages. The plates illustrate the machinery involved
and also a wide variety of beautiful decorative gas fixtures and lamps.

Accum had been born in Westphalia in 1769 and went to England in 1763. A
member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Berlin and the Royal Irish
Academy, and a Fellow of the Linnaean Society, he wrote popular works on
chemistry and brewing and then, in 1820, on food adulterations. This last
project made him many enemies, and within a year he was implicated in the
theft of leaves from books in the library of the Royal Institution and was
forced to leave England, depressed and disgraced, and return to his native
Germany.

Hardcover. 5"x8.25", 260 + x + 195 pages, with several illustrations in
the text, 2 folding charts, plus 10 and 7 engraved plates, all except one
folding, including an impressive plate of a gas works. Bound in old
mottled boards with a partially detached spine covering; covers rubbed and
worn; pages lightly toned and some stains here and there; old stamp on
title page; engraved bookplate. [05125] $1,200.00

Illustrations-
<http://www.joslinhall.com/images03/th-05125.jpg>

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