Dissertation sur La Glace, ou Explication physique de la formation de la Glace, & de ses divers phénomènes.

1749. Paris, L'Imprimerie Royale, 1749. Small 8vo. Contemp. full calf. Richly gilt back. Triple gilt lineborder on covers. Upper compartment of back repaired. Leather along fronthinge cracking, but holding and cover not loose. Spine rubbed. All edges gilt. Engraved frontispiece. XXIX,(10),384,XX pp. and 5 folded engraved plates. Mairan was member of the Academie Des Sciences from 1719 and he served as its secretary from 1741 to 1743. "He was an importent and sometimes controversial figure in the scientific community of his day. Working in the decades during which Newtonian ideas were becoming known in France, Mairan incorporated some of them in his theories; but he remained basically Cartesian." (DSB). He made importent studies on Aurora Borealis.His work here on ice, liquids, fluids and evaporations, was inspired by his experiences of the slowness of which ice melts and that it melts faster mixed with differents salts in freezing mixtures. It incorporates details of quantitative experiments, and treats the effects of cold on many substances. In comparison with the first edition from 1717, this edition is considerably enlarged and augmented by a section on the thermometres of George Martine and it is the first illustrated edition. - Poggendorff II: p. 17 - Duveen: p. 386 - Neville II: p. 129.