Histoire de l’ Academie Royale des Sciences. Annee M. DCCXXIX Avec le memoires de mathematique & de physique, pour la meme annee. Tires des registres de cette academie. Printed in Amsterdam by Pierre Coup, 1733, four years after the first French edition (Paris 1729). [Histoire de l’ Academie Royale des Sciences] vii, 164pp; [Memoires de mathematique & de physique] 595pp (in two vols paginated vii,164, 256 and pp257-595, plus 27 folding engraved plates.

16.5×9.5cm. Very nicely bound in full leather, with decorated six decorated spine panels. Fine condition.  $350

The volumes for this issue of the meetings, experiments and communications of the French academy of Sciences include:

In the review/Histoire section is an interesting “Sur les Machines a remonter les Bateaux”, pp 112-121;

Mairan, J-J.D. “Nouvelles conjectures sur la cause du mouvement diurne de la Terre sur son Axe d’Occident en Orient”, pp 54-92, with 3 plates. Jean-Jacques Dortous de Mairan (1678-1771,”was a mathematician and an enthusiastic experimenter whose major works were on the formation of ice and on the aurora borealis. However, he was also interested in all the important topics addressed the scientific community in the eighteenth century, among them, the shape of Earth, light, colors, sound, the composition of matter, and vis viva (the debate around the force of moving bodies and the conservation of matter).”–DSB  

Cl. An. Couplet (1742-1722, architectural engineer and treasurer of the French Academy of Sciences, and son of former Academician P. Couplet)

“…stdides frictionless systems…deriving (with extraordinary elaboration) a set of [11] theorems and corollaries from fundamental propositions…” This is one of two major papers delivered by Couplet in the Memoires that “[took] a remarkable step forward from de la Hire and Belidor”, so states Edoardo Benvenuto in the chapter “First Theories About Statics of Arches and Domes”, in An Introduction to the History of Structural Mechanics:, pp 339-340.

Couplet, C. “De la Poussee des Voutes”, pp 107-163, with 5 folding plates.

Louville, “Sur la Theorie des Mouvemes Varies’, pp 213-256;

Nicole, ‘Traite es Kignes du troisieme Ordre ou des Courbes du Seconde Genre”, 272-310;;

Hunauld, “Observations sur la structure et de l’action des quelques muscles de doigts”,  346;

Molieres, l’Abbe “Probleme Physico-Mathematiques, dont la solutio tend a servir de Reponse a un des Objections de M. Newton contre la possibilite des Tourbillons calesses”, p 333-346. “Privat de Molieres [1676-1742, physicist and mathematician, member of the Royal Academy, and professor at the College Royal] was one of those who most vigorously opposed the introduction into France of Newton’s theories of gravitation , to which he opposed the Cartesian conception of planetary movements. Subsequently, in a series of memoirs and articles published by the Academy of Sciences and Trevoux’s Journal , he tried to reconcile the two systems by using Malebranche’s ideas on vortices or “small vortices.” –Wiki

Maupertuis, ‘Sur quelques affections des courbes’ (reflecting on the theory of curves);

Rene Antoine de Reamur (1683-1757), “Second mémoire sur la porcelaine, ou suite of the principes qui doivent conduire dans la composition des porcelaines de différents genres etc.”;

Réaumur, “Quelle et la Principle cause d’alteration de la blancheur des Platres des batimens neufs” (on why the whiteness of the stone facades of new buildings do not stay that way);

Henri Pitot, “Comparison entre quelques machines mues par les courants des Fluides…”, which is an interesting section on the blades of paddle wheels and other machines utilizing water power;

And as usual set throughout the work are three works by Cassini on astronomical observations and eclipses…