EHRMANN Friedrich Ludwig Essai d’un art de fusion à l’aide de l’air du feu, ou air vital. Traduit de l’allemand par M. de Fontallard & revu par l’auteur. Suivi des mémoires de Mr. Lavoisier.

Neville, I, 409; Cole, 399; Duveen p. 190 et Duveen & Klickstein n° 67, 68 et 77.

First French edition, with the addition of three memoirs that were not included in the original German edition.

Ehrmann (1741-1800) and Lavoisier had carried out combustion experiments “carried out separately and without communication and which agree on almost all points in a striking manner” (Introduction).

Ehrmann’s text on oxygen-assisted fusion is followed by three memoirs by Lavoisier:

1. De l’action du Feu, Animé par l’air vital, sur les substances minérales les plus réfractaires

2. Sur l’effet que produit sur les Pierres précieuses un degré de feu très-violent

3. Sur un moyen d’augmenter considérablement l’action de Feu & de la Chaleur, dans les Opérations chimiques et d’un mémoire de Meusnier.

Description of an apparatus for handling different types of air, illustrated with a plate showing Lavoisier’s oxygen blow-pipe for the first time.

“The French translation of Ehrmann’s important experiments on hight-temperature fusion, which first appeared the previous year as Versuch einer Schmelzkunst (Strassburg 1786). Ehrmann’s experiments ‘were conducted at the same time as Lavoisier was working on the effects of high temperatures on various substances. The results which both obtained were so similar that Lavoisier, who must have seen Ehrmann’s manuscript before its publication, requested that his own memoirs on the subject be printed together with Ehrmann’s essay. The latter compiled and included them at the end of his book (pp. 235-349). He also added a memoir by Meusnier which describes the apparatus used by both Lavoisier and Ehrmann in their experiments'” (Neville).

The two plates show the tools used by Ehrmann and Lavoisier.

A fine copy with full margins, entirely uncut; spine label slightly dammaged, part of the spine formerly covered with blank paper.