Traite de La Construction et des Principaux usages des Instrumens de Mathematique avec les Figures necessaires pour l'intelligence de ce Traite. Dedie a son Altesse Royale, Monseigneur Le Duc D'Orleans
A Paris: Chez Jean Boudot, Jacques Collombay, et Jean Boudot fils rue S. Jacques 1709. First Edition. [8], 347, [6] pages + 28 plates. 8vo. Full calf binding with red spine label, raised bands and gilt decorations. Light rubbing to leather, stain to front leather lower right. Speckled edges. Previous owner name scratched out on front flyleaf. Bookplate of "D. de Romand" on front pastedown. Occasional early ink underlining and marginal highlights with occasional manuscript notation in a neat hand. Very Good. Full calf. [24011]
A first edition of this exceptional work that went through five editions. Many beautifully illustrated plates (27 finely engraved plates plus an additional map plate). "The best illustrated account of the scientific instruments in use at the beginning of the XVIIIth centry, including the compass of proportion, surveying and astronomical instruments, the micrometer, a machine showing solar and lunar eclipses, etc. The whole of the VIIth [section] is on the construction and use of instruments for Navigation, includ. sea charts." (Weil, 32/141) An English Language edition was done by Edmund Stone in 1823 and reprinted several times since. Bion was the Royal Engineer of mathematical instruments.
"The 'Traite de la construction ... des instruments mathematiques' gives a fairly complete list of instruments normally constructed during the first quarter of the eighteenth century...some of the instruments described by Bion - such as astrolabes, marine astrolabes, the jacob staff, and the Davis quadrant - were no longer used ... All of his treatises were more for the user and the amateur than for the manufacturer." While well known in his time (partly because of the treatises he published as well as the instruments he made), few of Bion's instruments survive today. (DSB 1/2, p 132-33)
Rough English translation of the title: "Deals with construction and the Main uses of Mathematical Instruments With the necessary figures for the understanding of this Treaty. Dedicated to His Royal Highness, The Duke Bishop D'Orleans" Only the 1725 Paris edition found in the Printed Catalogues of the Library of the Royal Astronomical Society (Luther, Martino:2006)
The first edition is much scarcer than the later editions in our experience.
Price: $3,500.00