Jean-Jacques Dortous de Mairan (1678-1771). Traite Physique et Historique de l'Aurore Boreale Annee MDCCXXXI, printed in Amsterdam by Pierre Mortier, 1735, 17x10cm., viii, 17 folding plates, 392pp. Presented as part of the series Histoire de l' Academie Royale des Sciences. Annee M. DCCXXXI. Avec le memoires de mathematique & de physique, pour la meme annee. [J.B. Shank notes that this work was “given the exceptional honor of being published as an addendum to the academy's memoirs”, which had happened only twice previously.]
Bound in full leather, with raised bands. (In one of the bands the gilt imprint reads "1731 Tom III"--the volume III refers to its place as the addendum to the two volume memoires/histoire academy proceedings of the same year. This volume is entirely stand-alone, and complete in itself.) Lovely copy, very fresh and clean. Very Good+. $500
This volume is the later Amsterdam edition of the first edition of Paris 1733 (and another Parisian printing of 1734).
“In (this work).. Mairan...disputes the explanation that the northern lights are caused by volcanic exhlations and suggests instead that the cause derives from the Sun's atmosphere.”--Parkinson, Breakthroughs, p 151
Mairan “was a devoted empiricist” whose “science was compatible with that of Reamur, especially in the concrete and empirical approach to nature”. Mairain was “the epitomy of the period's”...”Baconian orgy of detailed description of particular sightings”. After collecting these results and studying the history of the aurora (finding mentions back to 400 BCE) he “would synthesize them...to develop a mechanical explanation...in step with the other leading students of the aurora of the period...Halley and Euler.” One of Mairan's conclusions was that the “solar atmosphere produces zodaical light by acting physically and mechanistically upon our atmosphere...”, a conclusion which would change with the second edition of the work in 1754.--J. B. Shank, The Newton Wars and the Beginning of the French Enlightenment..., pg 101-2.
"Inquiry into the history and physics of the aurora borealis; the chapter on the relation between the aurora and the magnetic declination is of special interest." "--Wheeler Gift Catalog (available at Internet archive), pg 199, #382, which actually references the second and expanded edition of 1754.
Mairan “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)...and the aurora. He wanted to find physical mechanisms to explain phenomena. His theories were generally ingenious descriptions, which were sometimes mathematical and sometimes based on experiment."--DSB
Mairan was also a pioneer in the yet-discovered field of chronobiology (noted in “Clock Classics: It all started with the plants”, posted by Coturnix in Scienceblogs.
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