JF Ptak Science Books
This is the inaugural address establishing the Aeronuatical Society (now the Royal Aeronautical Society) of Great Britain, the event held at the residence of the Duke of Argyll (Campden Hill) on 12 January 1866 for its 91 members. The text is by James Glaisher, who was a significant experimentalist/balloonist in addition to running the Department of Meteorology and Magnetism at the Royal Greenwich Observatories for 34 years. The document is only 7x4 inches, but it winds up being quite dense (literally and figuratively), with about 800 words packed onto one side of this double-column sheet.
What the society intended to do was to present aeronautics as a serious pursuit in the sciences--the idea of flight and balloons having lapsed into the field of public entertainment (for the "grotesque and the hazardous"), or so wrote Glaisher. The aim was to have aeronautics recognized as another science, to "takes its standing among the sciences", and to save it from its degradation from its former wonder, and remove it from being looked upon with "contempt" by the scientific classes.
Gibbs-Smith, in his interesting and very useful Aviation, an Historical Survey states:
“One of the most important dates in flying history is the year 1866, when there was founded in London the Aeronautical Society (now Royal) of Great Britain. Although not the earliest society devoted to flying it was by far the most important and. influential . It soon attracted men who realized that mechanical flight was ultimately possible, and who were determined to study and solve its problems.. From then on the main development of aviation was to lie in the hands of scientifically or technologically trained men. The subject if flying…now took on a new seriousness…it now become a proper subject of investigation…”-- p. 41.
The object itself does not appear in the OCLC/WorldCat, and so is extremely uncommon in this format, so I thought it would be useful to report on it and reprint it here.
[AERONAUTICS] GLAISHER, James. Aeronautical Society of Great Britain. At the Inaugural Meeting of this Society held at the Residence of the Duke of Argyll, at Campden Hill, on January 12, 1866, His Grace Presiding: Mr. Glaisher, F.R.S., delivered the following Address...
London, by the Aeronautical Society, 1866.
Small, 7x5 inch handbill, printed on one side only.
Very good condition. $450
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