(Aerostation) FAUJAS DE SAINT-FOND (Barthélemy):... Lot 86

(Aerostation) FAUJAS DE SAINT-FOND (Barthélemy): Description of the experiments of the aerostatic machine of MM. de Montgolfier, and of those to which this discovery gave place; followed by researches on the height to which the balloon of the Champ-de-Mars reached; on the route which it held; on the different degrees of gravity of the air in the layers of the atmosphere; of a Memorandum on the flammable gas and on the one that MM. de Montgolfier; on the art of making aerostatic machines, of cutting them, of filling them, and on the way to dissolve elastic gum, etc., etc.; a Letter on the use of gas in aerostatic machines, on the use of gas in aerostatic machines, etc, etc.; a letter on the means of directing these machines, and on the different uses to which they can be put. The work is decorated with nine intaglio plates, representing the various machines that have been built to date, particularly the one at Versailles, and the one in which men have been lifted to a height of 324 feet, etc., etc. Second edition. Paris, Cuchet, 1784. 2 volumes. 13 by 21 cm. 1 frontispiece-XL-302-(2) pages + 8 hors-texts plates, and 1 folding table; (2)-366-(2) pages + 5 hors-texts plates (complete). Paperback, untrimmed, in contemporary marbled paper dust jacket. One page with a small tear without missing in volume 1. Very good condition. The second volume is entitled : Première suite de la description des expériences aérostatiques [] ; contenant les voyages aériens de la Muette, des Tuileries, de Lyon, de Milan, du Champ-de-Mars, &c. &c. Several memoirs by MM. de Montgolfier, & by M. le Comte de Milly, on the manner of directing aerostats, on the expansion of air & the simplest & least dangerous means of increasing or decreasing the heat at will; different ways of obtaining inflammable air & the means of filling a globe 30 feet in diameter with it in two hours; a memoir on elastic gum or rubber, with the manner of making a varnish at little expense, absolutely similar to that of elastic gum, &c. &c.. 2nd edition for volume I (E.O.: 1783) and first edition for volume II. pp. 300-302 of vol. I contain the report of the experiment at La Muette (21 November 1783), which is not in the original edition. Very interesting handwritten letter from Eugène Godard, son of a pioneer of aerostation, himself a famous balloonist and holder of several world records for altitude and distance, and a balloon builder. In 1873, he made an ascent with his father in the company of Jules Verne; the latter recounted his adventure in a booklet "Twenty-four minutes in a balloon". Eugène Godard thanked Monsieur de Beaufort for the hospitality offered to him after the landing of the postal balloon "le Météore" in front of his host's castle in 1894. Naturalist and geologist, Faujas de Saint-Fond supported financially the aerostatic researches of the Montgolfier brothers whose first balloon had risen from Annonay in June 1783, followed in September by a balloon carrying farm animals, to finally arrive at the first human flight, succeeded by the marquis of Arlandes and Pilâtre de Rozier.