NOLLET, J.A. — Essai sur l'électricité des corps. seconde édition.

Paris, Chez les frères Guerin, ruë S. Jacques, à SaintThomas d'Aquin, 1753. Small 8vo. W. engr. frontisp. 4 engr. fold. pls. (unsigned, sl. yellowed). Contemp. marbl. clf., spine gilt., w. (3/4 of) red spine label. Covers w. a single blind line. (Bottom of spine and lower corners some dam.). (XXVI, 276, (privilege). (large bookplate on upper paste down 'Clyde O Bedell' 'Books enrich those who glean'). Torlais, 'Un physicien au siècle des lumières...' pp. 251 - 262.: DSB X, pp. 145 - 148: '...Nollet found himself the quarry of Buffon, who was promoting the translation of a book by an unknown printer from Philadelphia. ... the first menace was the Philadelphia theory of the Leyden jar ... the second threat was the doctrine that electricity ... came in two qualitatively different, opposite, and mutually desctructive types. ... Nollet recognized these menaces and replied in an amusing set of "Lettres" (1753) ...[, two more vols. were published 1760 & 1767], containing a wealth of counterexamples which drew their strength from Franklin's occasional obscurities, imprecisions, exaggerations, and inappropriate appeals to traditional effluvial models.': Ronalds, p. 370: Bakken Libr., p. 92: In the same year of the 'Lettres' a second edition of the Éssais' was published. A book divided into 3 parts, part 1 describing the various instruments and apparatus employed in the electricity experiments, part 2 a total of 14 'Quests' in a question and answer form, part 3 conjectures drawn from experiments and experience as to the cause or origin of electricity. (First ed. 1746, 3rd ed. 1753, 4th ed. 1764): DSB X, pp. 145 - 148: Wheeler's Gift I, 329a: Bakken Libr., p. 92