enlightenment
Voyage à l'Isle de France, à l'Isle de Bourbon, au Cap de Bonne-Espérance...
Podrovnoe Opisanīe Parovoĭ Mashiny
An early Russian technical book describing an atmospheric steam engine for pumping water. The title indicates that it is based upon the one devised by the Englishman T. Savery. Thomas Savery (1650?-1715), the English military engineer, patented the first commercially successful atmospheric steam engine in 1698. This book was published by the Army Technical Academy. Following the Napoleonic Wars, the Russian Army continued to play a role in encouraging technical innovations (as well as in harboring political liberals).
The Principles of Natural Philosophy
An enquiry and attack on the scientific principles of Hobbes, Locke, Spinoza, and Descartes. Almost half of the book is devoted to light and colors, including the phenomenon of the rainbow, with a large chapter on sound. Green dismisses the Cartesian theory of light in favor of Newton's, which he refers to as "the Modern Philosophy."
A Large Dictionary English and Dutch
The Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History has been building a collection of foreign language dictionaries from the same time periods as the books in our rare collections (16th through 19th centuries) so that researchers can consult contemporary sources when reading and translating the books. Latin, Dutch, German, French, and Spanish have been the top priorities, with Swedish, Portuguese, and Italian as a second-tier. For 18th century Dutch, we recently bought the 4th edition of Sewel's English-Dutch dictionary, first published in 1691.
