Textbook by Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau (1737-1816) and his colleagues, written to accompany the course of chemistry they gave under the auspices of the Academy of Dijon. The work was hailed throughout Europe as an…

A Spanish manual on the theory and practice of dyeing in the textile industry in late eighteenth-century Madrid. The text discusses the treatment of silks, wools, and yarns; the preparation of the textiles; and the…

Barthélemy Faujas de Saint-Fond’s Description des expériences assembles first-hand observations, research, technical descriptions, letters, tables, diagrams, and illustrations related to the groundbreaking experiments…

Inscribed: "Expérience faite à Versaille, en présence de leurs Mejestés et de la Famille Royale, par Mr. Montgolfier, le 19 Sept. 1873. La Machine Aérostatique avoit 57 Pieds de haut sur 41 de Diamètre."

On September…

This plate illustrates the parts and mechanism of the faucet used to control the gas in the first hydrogen-filled balloon, launched from the Champs de Mars in Paris on August 27, 1783. In the illustration on Plate 3,…

This case was designed by the Robert brothers, Anne-Jean (1758-1820) and Nicolas Louis (1761-1828) Robert to quickly produce large quantities of hydrogen gas through the reaction of sulfuric acid with iron filings. The…

Illustration relating to the experiment that resulted in the world’s first hydrogen-filled balloon, conducted in Paris in August 1783, in which a taffeta balloon with a rubber coating was filled with hydrogen gas…

Inscribed: "de Mr. Montgolfier, construite dans le Jardin de Mr. Reveillon, rue de Montreuil Fauxbourg St. Antoine, aux dépens de l’Académie Royale des Sciences."

Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier (1745-1799) assembled this…

Jean Baptiste Marie Meusnier (1754-1793), an officer in the French Royal Corps of Engineers and a mathematician, observed the flight of the hydrogen-filled balloon launched from the Champs de Mars in Paris on August 27,…

Jean Baptiste Marie Meusnier (1754-1793), an officer in the French Royal Corps of Engineers and a mathematician, observed the flight of the hydrogen-filled balloon launched from the Champs de Mars in Paris on August 27,…

Inscribed: "Machine Aérostatique de 70 Pieds de hauteur sur 46 de Diamètre, qui s’est élevé à Paris, avec deux homme à la hauteur de 324 Pieds le 19. Oct, 1783."

On October 19, 1783, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier…

Inscribed: "Copié sur celui du Jesuite-Lana."

Faujas de Saint-Fond’s research for Description des expériences took him to the library of the King, where he consulted the book Prodromo, ouero saggio di alcune inuentioni…

The book consists of a compilation of letters, newspaper reports, and illustrations detailing the first aerial voyage in England: Italian Vincenzo Lunardi's 24-mile flight in a hydrogen balloon from the Artillery Ground…

From the "Explanation of the Apparatus" (page 67):
1. Net
2. Balloon
3. Crown to suspend the Balloon
4. Barrels of Zinc
5. Oil of Vitriol
6. Backs, in which the Water and Oil of Vitriol was mixed
7. Recipient of Oil of…

Frontispiece portrait of Vincent Lunardi, the author of An Account of the First Aërial Voyage in England.

From the "Explanation of the Plate of the Balloon" (page 67):
1. Crown, to which the Rope was fastened
2. Net-work
3. Ropes, forty-five in Number, a Rope every four Meshes
4 and 5. Nooses, through which the…

Copperplate engraving illustrates the chemical apparatus and balloons used for hydrogen generation.

Fig. 1: Practical experiment to show the principle behind a rarified (hot) air balloon. A paper cone is suspended from…

Copperplate engraving illustrates the chemical apparatus and balloons used for hydrogen generation. In figure four, a hot air balloon and basket support a passenger.

Fig. 1: The set up for filling a balloon with…

This volume by Tiberius Cavallo is considered one of the earliest and best works on aerostation published in eighteenth century England. Divided into two parts, this work details the history of aerostatics followed by…

Portrait of English antiquarian, historian, topographer, and herald William Camden (1551-1623). Camden is best known as author of Britannia, the first chorographical survey of the islands of Great Britain and Ireland,…

This work by Antoine Laurent Lavoisier is widely considered the first of its kind in modern chemical literature. Select digitized content includes front cover, frontismatter, woodcut vignettes, as well as thirteen…

This volume is the first complete German translation of the original French, Méthode de Nomenclature Chimique, a critical publication in the history of chemistry that laid the first foundations of modern chemical…

Elizabeth Fulhame was an early British chemist who invented the concept of catalysis and discovered photoreduction. Fulhame’s interest was in the reduction reaction that led to the deposition of metals. As she notes in…