[Rarebooks] fs: 1819 Gas Lighting Book

[Joslin Hall Rare Books, ABAA]

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 1793. 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>



JOSLIN HALL RARE BOOKS, ABAA
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