Discours sur quelques proprietes de l'Air & le moyen d'en connoitre la temperature dans tous les climats de la Terre in Histoire et Memoires de l'Academie Royale des Sciences [AMSTERDAM EDITION] Annee 1702, pp. 216-243, 1737

Amsterdam. FULL VOLUME 1st AMSTERDAM EDITION OF AMONTONS' DESCRIPTION OF HIS CONSTANT VOLUME AIR THERMOMETER, a device that functioned "independent of the atmospheric pressure). In other words, this is "Amontons' account of his invention of the first thermometer with which temperature was measured by the pressure of air."(Magie "A Source book in Physics," pp. 128.

In Amontons' invention, "air occupied the top of one of the branches of a U-shaped tube, and by its dilation it pushed down one of the mercury columns so that the other end of the branch formed a barometric chamber" (Dictionary of Scientific Biography 1, 138).

His device evolved from the work of Galileo, Boyle, and others. In the paper offered here, Amontons describes that process as well as the construction and function of his invention. As stated (but here in a bit more detail) Amontons' thermometer consisted of a U-shaped tube ending in a bulb, filled with mercury, the long end of the tube being 45 inches, the height of the long arm being the measure of the "spring" which the air, in the region above the mercury in the big bulb, had obtained.

Guillaume Amontons, (1663 - 1705) was a French physicist and inventor of scientific instruments, best known for his work on friction (see separate offering below) and the subject of the work offered here, temperature measurement.

WE SEPARATELY OFFER: 1699 FIRST EDITION OF GUILLAUME AMONTONS'S TWO PAPERS ESTABLISHING THE CONCEPT OF FRICTION AS WELL AS THE LAW OF PROPORTIONALITY, the idea that frictional force is proportional to normal forces. CONDITION & DETAILS: In: Histoire de L'Academie Royale des Sciences. Annee 1702. Amsterdam: Pierre Mortier. Ex-libris bearing only a small, old, and discreet stamp on the title page. 13 engraved copperplates (including frontispiece); many in-text illustrations; 12mo (7 x 4 inches). Handsomely rebound in full calf. 5 raised bands at the gilt-lettered spine. Tight and solid. Marbled endpapers. Bright and clean inside and out.