GLAUBER, Johann Rudolph (1604-1670). A Description of new Philosophical Furnaces, or a new Art of Distilling, divided into five parts. Whereunto is added a Description of the Tincture of Gold ... also, the first part of the Mineral Work. Translated into English by John French. London: Richard Coats for Thomas Williams, 1651-52.

Details

GLAUBER, Johann Rudolph (1604-1670). A Description of new Philosophical Furnaces, or a new Art of Distilling, divided into five parts. Whereunto is added a Description of the Tincture of Gold ... also, the first part of the Mineral Work. Translated into English by John French. London: Richard Coats for Thomas Williams, 1651-52.

4o (181 x 133 mm). Several woodcuts of furnaces and apparatus in text. (Title soiled with some marginal fraying, a few small repairs patched at edges affecting a few letters [a few in facsimile] and title-border slightly, some browning throughout, old ink stain on some fore-margins.) Modern sheep antique. Provenance: Thomas Long (early signature on title); Peter Chadlocke(?) (early signature on title deleted); James Elliot, professor of astronomy, London (ownership inscription on flyleaves and title-page dated 1796); Denis Duveen (bookplate).

FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH of Glauber's Furni novi philosophici (first published in latin in Amsterdam, 1646-49), De auri tinctura (1646), and the first part of his Opus minerale (1650). Glauber was responsible for many technical advances in the science of chemistry, and made important improvements in distilling furnaces to greatly increase the range of distillable substances. Duveen, p. 252; NLM/Krivatsy 4785; Partington II, pp. 341-61; Wing G-846; Norman 909.