Two generous donors, Madison Council member Lady Sainsbury and her husband, Lord Sainsbury of Turville, minister for science and technology in the British government, made a grand contribution to the Library in 2000 of UK £250,000, at that time $400,000, to be used for the purchase of rare and important works in the history of science and technology needed to fill gaps in the Library's collections.
An early work by Sir Isaac Newton is part of the Sainsbury gift.
A committee of acquisition specialists and recommending officers familiar with the literature of the history of science and the Library's holdings in the field was formed to determine how best to spend the funds. For many years the Library has held one of the most extensive and impressive collections on the subject in the world, but the Sainsbury gift enabled the institution to purchase items from its list of important desiderata and to carry forward a very important goal: the purchase of more of the remaining editions needed to complete the so-called "Horblit Project." This is the acquisition of all of the editions mentioned and described by Harrison D. Horblit in his 1964 book "One Hundred Books Famous in Science," which actually describes 129 titles.
Library officials alerted dealers in rare scientific publications of its interest, and within a reasonable time the Library was able to expend the Sainsbury gift by purchasing a number of very impressive rare scientific and technological books—18 titles in all. They are enumerated and briefly described below as a substantial and welcome addition to the science collections of the Library of Congress.
Bernard, Claude. "Introduction à l'étude de la médecine expérimentale." Paris: Baillière et Fils, 1865. Horblit 11b. This important dissertation on the "scientific method" by the founder of experimental medicine contains an analysis of his experimental methods in physiology, which contributed to advances of great significance in biology and other sciences.
Carnot, Nicolas L. Sadi. "Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu et sur les machines propres à développer cette puissance." Paris: Bachelier, 1824. This landmark book anticipated both the first and second laws of thermodynamics. It led directly to the statement of the theory of the conservation of energy by Helmholtz in 1847. An 1878 reprint of Carnot's work included the contents of notebooks that showed that Carnot himself had formulated this theory, which is now the first law of thermodynamics. The second law of thermodynamics is also implicit in Carnot's treatise.
Cuvier, Georges L.C.F.D. "Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles de quadrupèdes." 4 vols. Paris: chez Deterville, 1812. Horblit 20b. This is one of the foundation works in the sciences of paleontology and comparative anatomy, in which Cuvier was paramount in his lifetime. This title is the inauguration of vertebrate paleontology.
Fulton, Robert. "Report on the Proposed Canal Between the Rivers Heyl and Helford." [London, 1796]. Fulton was one of the most important figures in early American technology. Before his steamboat Clermont first ascended the Hudson River in 1807, he worked for years in England and France on industrial development, especially inland navigation and the cutting of canals. His publications on these topics are very rare, and the Library's recently acquired copy of the present title is the only one known to be in the United States.
Galvani, Luigi. De viribus electricitatis in motu musculari. In "De Bononiensi Scientiarum et Artium Instituto atque Academia Commentarii, tomus septimus." Bologna: ex Typographia Instituti Scientiarum, 1791. Horblit 37a. This is the true first edition of Galvani's report on his discovery of "galvanism," the phenomenon of the production of electric current from the contact of two different metals in a moist situation, in this case a frog's legs. The volume is accompanied by vols. II, III, IV and V of "De Bononiensi Scientiarum." Though lacking vols. I and VIII, the Library's set becomes the most complete run of this important scientific journal in an American repository.
Hales, Stephen. "Vegetable Staticks: or, An Account of Some Statical Experiments on the Sap in Vegetables: Being an Essay Towards a Natural History of Vegetation." London: W. and J. Innys, 1727. Horblit 45a. Bound uniformly with:
Hales, Stephen. "Statical Essays: Containing Haemastaticks; or, An Account of Some Hydraulick and Hydrostatical Experiments Made on the Blood and Blood Vessels of Animals." London: W. Innys and R. Manby … and T. Woodward, 1733. Horblit 45b. In the first volume, Hales contributed a seminal account of plant physiology, including the movement of sap, and the discovery that carbon dioxide is supplied to plants by the air and forms a vital part of the plants' food supply. The second volume contains the studies in blood pressure that made Hales one of the founders of modern experimental physiology. The fine, matching bindings are contemporary with the volumes.
Heck, Johannes van [or Eck, or van Heeck]. "De nova stella disputatio." Rome: A. Zanetti, 1605. This is the first publication of the first international scientific society, the Accademia dei Lincei, which was founded in 1603. The book, about the supernova of 1604, is extremely rare, with no previously known copies in the United States or Great Britain and only a few known copies in Italy. Heck (1579-1616) was one of the four original members of the "Lynxes," an association of learned men gathered around Federico Cesi, which fixed as their objectives the study of science and mathematics, the pursuit of new knowledge and the publication of scientific discoveries.
Hutton, James. "Theory of the Earth, with Proofs and Illustrations." 2 vols. Edinburgh: Cadell, Junior, and Davies, London; and William Creech, Edinburgh, 1795. Horblit 52a. This is the first edition of the modern theory of the formation of the earth's crust, the doctrine of uniformitarianism. The doctrine first appeared in lectures read at the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1785 and published in the Society's Transactions in 1788. Attacks on Hutton's ideas, that the crust was formed gradually and by forces still observable now, led him to expand his thesis into this two-volume classic published in 1795.
Huygens, Christian. "Systema Saturnium, sive de causis mirandorum Saturni phaenomenon, et comite ejus planeta novo." The Hague: Adrian Vlacq, 1659. When Galileo observed Saturn with his telescope, he could not account for its odd shape; it appeared to have arms! Huygens, with a larger and much improved instrument, approximated the truth: that Saturn was surrounded by a ring. In the "Systema" he also described Saturn's largest and brightest satellite. (The announcements were preceded by a one-sentence anagram by Huygens in Petrus Borel's "De vero telescopii inventore," 1655/56, inserted to secure priority.)
Huygens, Christian. "Traité de la lumière." Leyden, P. vander Aa, 1690. Horblit 54. One of the major classics of optics, this laid out the wave theory of light as opposed to the corpuscular theory favored by Newton. Modern physicists combine both theories. The second part of the book contains Huygens' mechanical explanation of gravity. Gravity should not be attributed to a quality or propensity of bodies, but should be explained, like every other natural process, in terms of motion.
Newton, Isaac. "Optical Lectures Read in the Publick Schools of the University of Cambridge," anno domini, 1669. London: F. Fayram, 1728. This is the first edition of these lectures, originally delivered much earlier, which were published by his family following his death in 1727. The lectures predate the content of Newton's major, and basic, contribution to the subject, "Opticks" (London, 1704).
Palissy, Bernard. "Discours admirables, de la nature des eaux et fonteines." Paris: Martin le Jeune, 1580. Palissy was far ahead of his time in scientific matters, and this is the first edition of an important book in a number of sciences. The "Discours" deals with an impressive array of subjects: agriculture, alchemy, botany, ceramics, embalming, engineering, geology, hydrology, medicine, metallurgy, meteorology, mineralogy, paleontology, philosophy, physics, toxicology and zoology.
Scheele, Carl Wilhelm. "Chemische Abhandlung von der Luft und dem Feuer." Upsula and Leipzig, Magnus Swederus, 1777. Horblit 92. The announcement of Scheele's discovery of oxygen was made independently of, and two years prior to, Priestley. The composition of air by two gases is demonstrated, one necessary for combustion and respiration, and the other preventing combustion. Scheele finished his research in 1773 but publication of his findings was delayed.
Stahl, Georg Ernst. "Fundamenta chymiae dogmaticae & experimentalis." Nuremberg: J.E. Adelburner for W.M. Endter, 1723. This sets out the first formulation of the influential phlogiston theory of combustion, one of the first rational systems of chemistry based on experimental observations. "Phlogiston," the principle of combustibility, was central to the revision of 18th century chemistry to account for observable phenomena by reformers such as Stahl. The phlogiston theory provided a reasoned explanation for many of these phenomena, until it was superseded by the new concept of chemistry developed at the end of the 18th century by French chemists. The phlogiston concept was, however, a transitional theory of the greatest importance in the history of science.
Sprengel, Christian Konrad. "Das entdeckte Geheimniss der Natur im Bau und in der Befruchtung der Blumen." Berlin: Friedrich Vieweg, 1793. This pioneering study of the sexuality of plants greatly influenced Darwin's later work. Sprengel concluded that the structure of the flower was an adaptation to secure pollination by one or several species of insects and showed cross-pollination to be the rule rather than the exception. These conclusions were surprising and ahead of their time, and they were largely forgotten until Darwin brought them again before the world.
Werner, Abraham Gottlieb. "Von den äusserlichen Kennzeichen der Fossilien." Leipzig: S.L. Cousins, 1774. Werner developed a completely new system for the description of minerals. He was the first to understand that the correct classification of minerals should be based on their chemical composition and that minerals could be identified by their external characteristics. As a result of this volume, Wernerian nomenclature took a firm hold on the European continent and in England.
A substantial portion of the Sainsbury gift was used toward the purchase of a replacement set of William Curtis' Botanical magazine (1787–). The Library's set of its hand-colored plates was ravaged by thieves. Madison Council member William G. Myers donated a large sum to be used for the purchase of another set, and when a suitable set was located, the difference between the Myers gift and the selling price was spent from the Sainsbury gift. (See Information Bulletin, October 2003.)
