Jean-Gaffin Gallon, 1776-78

Machines & inventions
Jean-Gaffin Gallon, 1776-78
GALLON, Jean-Gaffin (1706-1775), editor. Machines et inventions approuvées par l'Académie royale des sciences. Paris: Antoine Boudet, 1776-78.

An important publication on scientific instruments approved by the Académie royale des sciences. This compendium of French inventions describes and illustrates machines and devices that were either examined by the Académie or were made up in model form. The inventors, only some of whom were academicians, included Godin and Outhier (who were involved in the expedition to measure the arc of the meridian with their instruments), Dortous de Mairan, Cassini, Clairaut le père, l'abbé Nollet, Huygens, Pascal, Perrault, and many others. This edition, in folio format, follows the seven-volume quarto edition published from 1735-1777. See Brunet I, 1468.

Three volumes, folio (430 x 272mm). 497 engraved plates, comprising vol.1: 191 plates numbered 1-189, 1 folding, plus 2 plates numbered 105* and 177*; vol.2: 240 plates numbered 190-429, with 197 and 198 in a single plate, plus one plate numbered 329*; vol.3: 66 plates numbered 430-495, most full-page, some 2 to a sheet; each volume with explanatory text. Contemporary mottled calf (rebacked preserving spine labels). Provenance: Collection of Peter and Margarethe Braune (bookplate).