A Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, and the Arts: illustrated with engravings. Vol I

London : GG and J Robinson, 1798 A good copy of the first volume of this important work, in more recent half leather binding, with 24 black and white plates. William Nicholson published the first part of his monthly Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry and The Arts” in April 1797. This is the complete series for volume 1 running from April 1797 to March 1798. Each month consisting of a collection of papers submitted by various authors. In contrast to the Transactions of The Royal Society, which has many glittering names but also many poor contributions, all of these papers have scientific merit. The papers themselves are well presented and structured, with references, descriptions of experiments, analyses and reasoned results. As such it represents a style that we would associate today with a learned journal presenting research outcomes from our Universities and Research Organisations. Nicholson edited this journal from its inception up to its closure in 1814, though some reports claim it was merged with a similar scientific journal of its time, the Philosophical Magazine to form The Philosophical Magazine and Journal. Nicholson was particularly supportive of new and emerging authors, accepting short papers from researchers early in their careers. The journal was also the forum for some significant discoveries in its later years, including Nicholson's and Carlisle's experiment that split water in hydrogen & oxygen in 1800, the first examples of flying machines by George Cayley in 1809, and the discovery of palladium in 1803 by William Hyde Wollaston. Included in this volume is a significant paper for its time on the study of methods of obviating the effects of heat and cold in time pieces – an essential requirement to develop an accurate method of measuring longitude. Amongst the inventions is a Gravimeter, used to measure the specific gravity of fluids – and so important for quality brewing. The August 1797 section opens with “an account of a new system of measures established in France”. This may have been the first presentation to an English audience of the Metric System; and predates the official adoption of the metric system in France in 1799. The half leather binding has raised bands and gilt compartments with title label to the spine and marbled boards. The new endpapers have a bookplate of Charles Hood to the front pastedown. The binding is in very good condition. Internally, there are signatures of Arthur Pearson 1834 and Eng Obach 1896 to a preliminary. The text pages are generally clean and in good to very good condition. P95 has a small piece out of the outer page margin not affecting text. The plates have some foxing and occasional light brown staining.