[Rarebooks] fa: An APPARATUS FOR GRINDING TELESCOPIC MIRRORS & OBJECT LENSES - 1822

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, along with other science and mathematics titles, auctions ending Sunday, October 6. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/o8jk43a

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.



The Rev. William Cecil: On an Apparatus for Grinding Telescopic Mirrors and Object Lenses. 1822. [BOUND WITH] George Biddell Airy: On the use of Silvered Glass for the Mirrors of Reflecting Telescopes. 1822. [Cambridge: Printed at the University Press, 1827.] Two complete papers, extracted from a broken volume of the Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, bound in blue-grey french wraps; p. 85-104; 105-118 (34 pages total), plus 1 engraved plate. Some foxing to the plate and the adjoining text leaves, otherwise clean and sound and firmly bound in fresh modern wraps.

Of particular note is the early paper by the precocious George Biddell Airy, only twenty-one at the time and not yet graduated from Cambridge, but already recognized as the leading man in his class in the fields of astronomy and mathematics. Airy (1801- 1892) was one of the giants of nineteenth-century astronomy and served as Astronomer Royal from 1835 to 1881. The Martian crater Airy is named for him. "His many achievements include work on planetary orbits, measuring the mean density of the  Earth, a method of solution of two-dimensional problems in solid mechanics and, in his role as Astronomer Royal, establishing Greenwich as the location of the prime meridian. His reputation has been tarnished by allegations that, through his inaction, Britain lost the opportunity of priority in the discovery of Neptune" (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition; Wikipedia). The paper by William Cecil, on a related topic, is accompanied by an engraved plate. It is interesting to note that the Cambridge Observatory was established in 1823, just a year after these two papers were read to the Philosophical Society.