The London, Edinburgh and Dublin philosophical magazine and journal of science. Series 3, volume 10, January-June 1837. 8vo, viii, 510pp. Bound in half-calf with nicely marbled boards, the boards having the oval gilt stamp of the “Society of Writers to the Signet ”Red and black spine labels; the small oval leather label identifying the volume number is missing. Very Good copy. $450
Numerous interesting papers are included in this volume, not the least of which are by two major photographic pioneers, Golding Bird and William Henry Fox Talbot:
Talbot, William Henry Fox. “Mr. H. F. Talbot's “Experiment on the Interference of Light” William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) was among the earliest of the photographic pioneers, or pre-pioneers, as he asserted priority of his photographic method for 1835 when Daguerre revealed his own (very different) method in 1839. Talbot (or Fox Talbot) was also a practitioner of the art, publishing a stone-cold and revolutionary work of photographically illustrated books, The Pencil of Nature.
- “The first announcement of Talbot's bands appeared in a brief note in the Philosophical Magazine for 1837 1 Phil Magazine 1837 p 364 LXXIL 3d Series 10. Mr Talbot's “Experiment on the Interference of Light By H Fox Talbot Esq FRS”--it was translated into German and appeared in the Annalen der Physik und Chemie von JC Poggendorf 2nd series 1837. Sir David Brewster announced before a section meeting of the British Association in 1838 that these bands could not be formed except by introducing the retarding plate from the violet side of the spectrum...”--as referenced in Thomas Douby's "talbot's BAnds" in the Physical Review, X/II, December 1917, p 332. "This classic experiment has been largely ignored by modern text book authors. It is worth reviewing for historical reasons and also because it provides a simple yet striking example of the role of group velocity in interferometry...."--Abstract, M. Parker Givens, “Talbot's Bands”, in American Journal of Physics, 61, 601 (1993).["TALBOT'S BANDS. These very remarkable bands are seen under certain conditions when a tolerably pure spectrum is regarded with the naked eye, or with a telescope, half the aperture being covered by a thin plate, e.g., of glass or mica. The view of the matter taken by the discoverer 2 was that any ray which suffered in traversing the plate a retardation of an odd number of half wave-lengths would be extinguished, and that thus the spectrum would be seen interrupted by a number of dark bars. lint this explanation cannot be accepted as it stands, being open to the same objection as Arago's theory of stellar seintillation...--Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th edition.]
Bird, Golding. “Mr. G. Bird's Experimental Researches on the Nature and Properties of Albumen” and “Mr. G. Bird on the Action of Electricity on Albumen”, (An earlier paper on the albumen issue by Bird appears in the Philosophical Magazine, vol IX, July-Dec 1836) Dr. Golding Bird (1814-1854) is best remembered today for his very early work in photography, perhaps the most significant being "A Treatise on Photogenic Drawing." which was five papers in a series found and bound in the London-published journal, The Mirror, appearing in issues from April 20-May 25, 1839, and which includes "A treatise on photogenic drawing", (pp. 241-44); and also "The new art - photography", (pp. 261-2, 281-3, 317-18, 333-335). It is here where Golding Bird furnishes the first image of a photograph--granted, this was a heliographic image in the original, and Golding Bird reproduces it as a woodcut, which makes it also the first non-photographic representation of a photograph. In the paper in this volume Golding Bird writes on albumen, which would not only be of interest to him as a physician with a specialty in the kidneys (he also invented a flexible stethoscope) but also later in the history of photography, when in 1848 Blanquart-Evrard (1802-1872) would introduce the revolutionary printing images on paper, which was made possible by incorporating albumen in the process. Golding Bird was expert in several fields and accomplished a great deal given his 40 years on the Earth.
Also appearing in the volume (in addition to numerous other papers) are:
- “Demonstrations of certain Points in Fresnel's Theory of Double Refraction, deduced from the Investigations of the Undulatory Theory which have recently appeared in this Journal”;
- Renwick, James. “Prof. Renwick on the Height of the Rocky Mountains of North America”;
- “The Rev. W. Ritchie. LL.D. on a simple Mode of exhibiting Newton's Rings, and a Mode of exhibiting the Fixed Lines in the Spectrum” ;
- “Mr. J. Young's Account of a new Voltaic Battery, being a Modification of the Construction recommended by Mr. Faraday”;
- Becquerel, Antoine. “Becquerel's Description and Use of an Electro-magnetic Balance, and of a Battery with invariable Currents”.
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