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Hales, Stephen.
Vegetable Staticks: Or, an Account of Some Statical Experiments on the Sap in Vegetables: Being an Essay towards a Natural History of Vegetation. Also, a Specimen of An Attempt to Analyse the Air, by a great Variety of Chymio-Statical Experiments; Which were read at several Meetings before the Royal Society.
Publisher: Printed for W. and J. Innys, at the West End of St. Paul’s; and T. Woodward, over-against St. Dunstan’s Church in Fleetstreet, London;
Date of Publication: 1727
Stock Code: 15035
First edition. Octavo pp., [8], ii-vii, [2], 376, sig., A-2A⁸ 2B⁴, plus 19 engraved plates. Collated and complete. Contemporary sprinkled calf; spine on five raised bands; titled in gilt to red morocco spine label; double gilt fillets to boards; all edges sprinkled red. Armorial bookplate of Margaret Maskelyne to front past-down; contemporary ownership inscription in ink of one ‘A. Louch’ to title-page. Binding sympathetically and capably re-cased with new spine but preserving the original title-label and end-papers; corners rubbed. Internally clean. A square, solid copy. An important work of biology and physics which paved the way for the discoveries of Lavoisier, Black, and Priestley. Hales studied the movement of sap in plants, the effect of light on growth, the loss of water through evaporation, and the manner in which plants obtained gases through distillation. Hales was the first to realise that plants produced carbon dioxide. Hales experiments would earn him a Fellowship of the Royal Society and the Copley Medal. Lady Margaret Clive [née] Maskelyne of Plassey (1735-1817) was a scholar, musician, and astronomer, who in 1754 married Robert Clive (1725-1774), better known as Clive of India. The Maskelyne armorial bookplate in this volume suggests Lady Margaret owned the book before her marriage. The Maskelyne family were virtuosic: Margaret had an interest in the sciences from a young age, and Margaret’s brother, Nevil, would go on to become Astronomer Royal. An important scientific work owned by a female scholar and astronomer. £1250.00