[Rarebooks] fa: London Gazette 1687 - DESALINATION ENGINE + GREAT TURKISH WAR &c.

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, October 19. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/lzncc4x

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.


The London Gazette. Numb. 2209. From Monday January 17 to Thursday January 20 1686 [i.e. 1687, New Style]. [London:] Printed by Tho. Newcomb in the Savoy, 1686 [i.e. 1687]. One sheet, small folio, (19 x 8 cm.), printed on both sides. Faint horizontal crease with some rubbing, light damp-stain to bottom corner; trimmed a little close at the top clipping the issue number and just touching the first line of text on the verso.

Contains an account of the "ample Testimony" received by King James II, "from some of his Officers lately returned from Sea," of the efficacy of "the Patentees Engine for making Salt-water Fresh." A favorable report also comes from the garrison at Tilbury, who, "with one Engine not exceeding six foot diameter, making six hundred Gallons in 24 hours, was supplyed with fresh and wholesome Water the last Summer." Hence, the king graciously condescends to grant his royal approval to the enterprise. The "patentee" referred to is probably Robert Fitzgerald, whose desalination "engine" had been granted a patent in 1683. Fitzgerald was the nephew of the great chemist and natural philosopher Robert Boyle.

This issue also contains much on the ongoing Great Turkish War, or War of the Holy League, with dispatches from Venice, Marseilles, Vienna, etc.; news from the court of Louis XIV, including an account of his audience with the "Ambassadors of Syam"; notices of a lost Spaniel bitch and a runaway apprentice; an advertisement for the sale of "the late King's Head in Marble, curiously done by an Italian Artist"; etc.