SWINDEN, (JAN HENDRIK) VAN. - THE PRIZE-WINNING MEMOIR ON MAGNETISM AND THE COMPASS.

Recherches sur les Aiguilles Aimantées, et sur leurs Variations régulières, qui ont portagé le Prix proposé pour L'Année 1777.

Paris, Moutard, Panckoucke, 1780. 4to. Contemp. full sprinckled calf with 5 raised bands on spine. Richly gilt compartments, title-and tomelabels with gilt lettering. "Mémoires fe Mathematique et de Physique, Présentés à l'Academie des Sciences par divers Savans", Tome VIII. XXIV,624 pp., 8 engraved plates a. 52 folded tables. (Entire volume offered). Van Swinden's work: pp. 1-576, 3 folded engraved plates and 52 folded tables.

First edition of Van Swinden's large work on magnetism and the function of the compass and the variability of magnetic needles. It also explained the diurnal variation of the earth's magnetic force.

In 1767 van Swinden obtained the chair of philosophy, logic, and metaphysics at Franekar University. He studied all the popular scientific topics of the period, especially magnetism, electricity, meteorolgy, and chemistry, and corresponded with many leading scientists, including Bonnet, Euler, Deluc, J. C. Wilcke, Bertholon, and Lalande. His Tentamen de magnete (1772) dealt with his mathematical theory of magnetism, and in 1777 he and Coulomb shared the gold medal of the Paris Academy of Sciences for a very detailed prize essay on magnetism, Recherches sur les aiguilles aimantées. (the essay offered).

Poggendorff II, 1057

Order-nr.: 44929