Alchemy - GLAUBER (Jean-Rodolphe). The description... Lot 29

Alchemy - GLAUBER (Jean-Rodolphe). The description of the new philosophical furnaces, or distillatory Art, by the means of which are drawn the Spirits, Oils, Flowers, & other Medicines, by an easy way & with great profit, from Vegetables, Animals, & Minerals. With their use, both in chymy, and in Medicine. Put in light in favour of the Amateurs of the Truth by Jean Rodolphe Glauber and translated into our language by the Sieur Du Teil. Paris, Thomas Jolly, 1659. 6 parts of [20]-71-1bl. ; [2]-174 ; [2]-74 ; 92 ; 53-1bl. ; 62-2 bl. ; [15] pp. raked calf, richly ornamented smooth spine, dark brown title-piece, marbled boards (post 19th c. binding). Very rare first edition of the French translation. It is illustrated with 14 woodcut plates showing retorts, furnaces, athanors and other utensils used by the alchemists of the time for the manufacture of precious stones and other substances. (Part I: one folding plate showing 3 figures; Part II: one folding plate; Part III: 4 folding plates; Part IV: 1 folding plate; Part V: 7 plates out of text; Part VI: "Annotations on the appendix of the fifth part, where several unknown and useful secrets are dealt with". The name of the famous alchemist Glauber is attached to the sulphate of soda "the admirable salt". He discovered several other salts and showed great skill in the chemistry of dyes as well as in the manufacture of artificial stones. Some paper restorations, light spotting in places, very fine and discreet marginal wormholes on the last few pages. (Caillet, 4570; missing in Dorbon; Fergusson, I, 324 "This is certainly one of the most remarkable books on chemistry of the 17th century"; De Guaita, 1421).