German

Zeppelin-Weltfahrten

This is book 2, the second of two volumes containing collections of cigarette cards that are souvenirs of the zeppelin age. Cigarette cards were used by cigarette companies to stiffen cigarette packaging and to advertise their brand. Due to their unique design and limited printing, they often became collectibles. This collection includes cards featuring pictures of zeppelins and images taken while the photographer was in a zeppelin. Notable photographs include the Italian Alps and Mediterranean Sea.

Zeppelin-Weltfahrten

This is book 1, the first of two volumes containing collections of cigarette cards that are souvenirs of the zeppelin age. Cigarette cards were used by cigarette companies to stiffen cigarette packaging and to advertise their brand. Due to their unique design and limited printing, they often became collectibles. This collection includes cards featuring pictures of zeppelins and images taken while the photographer was in a zeppelin. Notable photographs include the Italian Alps and Mediterranean Sea.

Meissen-Glas. Nachtrag-Katalog Nr. 65

The Cooper Hewitt Library recently acquired two catalogs of 1930 Meissner Glasraffinerie glass shades for electrical light fixtures. Meissen-Glas. Nachtrag-Katalog Nr. 65 has 8 pages of illustrations, mostly in color. They advertise hanging light fixtures and wall sconces and came in a variety of designs. Many show the influence of the Bauhaus and Art Deco styles that were fashionable during this era.

Machina Coelestis

Johannes Hevelius (1611-1687) is justly famous as an astronomer, but his livelihood came from the family’s brewing business, and Johannes himself was admitted to the Brewer’s Guild in 1636. His interests lay elsewhere, however. Devoting himself to constructing astronomical instruments and, most importantly, to carefully and precisely grinding lenses for telescopes, he developed an extremely well-equipped 17th-century observatory in Danzig, Poland.

Neu Vollkommenes Krauter-Buch

Pietro Mattioli (1501-1577), a physician and botanist, first published his commentaries on the classic work on medical botany from antiquity – Dioscorides’ De materia medica – in 1544 in Italian.  He identified the plants that the ancient Greek had discussed as being medically useful and added dozens of new ones known from other parts of Europe.  Mattioli’s work was quickly translated into numerous European languages and re-published for more than a century as the standard text on the subject.  This edition – in German, dated 1678 – is evidence of the work’s enduring value.  This b

Das Weisse Haus Kochbuch

Translated into German from the original “White House cookbook” first published in 1887, this book served the rising and prospering German-speaking immigrant population of the period.  As the lengthy sub-title tells us, it’s more than just a cookbook –it is an encyclopaedic compendium of recipes for foods, salves and medicaments, lotions and personal products, cleaning and polishing compounds, etc.

A Special Study of Operation "Vittles"

Also known as the Berlin Airlift, this study examines how Allied troops used air corridors to deliver fuel, food, and other supplies to West Berlin during "Operation Vittles."  This special issue of the Aviation Operations (April 1949) was owned by former Congressman Carl Vinson.  Carl Vinson (November 18, 1883 – June 1, 1981) was a United States Representative from Georgia (D-Ga.).

Herrn Georgii Galgemairs Kurtzer Gründlicher Gebesserter unnd Vermehrter Underricht

Second, greatly expanded edition of a primer describing the construction & use of two instruments — a proportional compass (Circkel) and lineal compass (Schregmäß) — for the measurement of geometrical solids and lines, respectively. This 1615 edition is ninety-five pages longer than the initial pamphlet (1610), and substitutes an engraved plate for the second woodcut plate of the first edition. The construction of the instruments is described and the geometry and measurement of increasingly complex solids and linear configurations are explained.

Algorithmus Linealis Numeratione[m]

One of the earliest treatises on calculation by the aid of counters on an abacus. In the dedication, Heinrich Stromer von Auerbach (1482-1542) refers to Aristotle and Boethius. There is a brief introduction on the use of counters or projectiles, then the work covers addition, subtraction, duplication, mediation, multiplication, division, progression, and the rule of three.

Beschäftigungen der Berlinischen Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde. (4 vols.)

Within two years of its founding in 1773 the Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin (the Natural History Society of Berlin) became one of the most active and important scientific organizations of the 18th century. Its journal, the Beschäftigungen (4 volumes, 1775-1779), contains approximately 120 articles by a roster of prominent European naturalists, covering zoology, mineralogy, geology, conchology, scientific instruments, astronomy, and other scientific subjects, as well as catalogues of the Society's library and cabinet of natural-history specimens.

Die Versteinerungen des Steinkohlengebirges von Wettin und Lobejun im Sallkreise

This book by Germar (1786-1853), a professor of mineralogy at the University of Halle and the director of its mineralogical cabinet/museum, focuses on fossils discovered in Saxony, constituting some of the earliest fossil material described in Europe. It is of considerable importance to paleobiology, as the plant and animal taxa described in it are the basis of species, genus, and family names in modern paleoentomology and paleobotany.

Die Spinnen Amerikas

The Russian Count Eugene von Keyserling (1833-1889) spent his career in the natural sciences specializing in spiders. His publications focus primarily on the spiders of North and South America, and Die Spinnen Amerikas constitutes his magnum opus, describing hundreds of species new to science. It also contains 58 lithographed plates (43 colored) and is considered one of the finest iconographies of arachnids ever published.

Alberti Ritter Gymnasii Ilfeldensis Regii Con-Rectoris Commentatio II. De Zoolithodendroidis in Genere et in Specie de Schvvartzburgico-Sondershusanis Curiosissimis ac Formosissimis...

Albrecht Ritter (1684-1748) was in instructor at the royal Stiftscollegium at Ilefeld, Germany. Although relatively little is know about him, he was an early proponent of taking students into the field and learning from direct observation of and experience with the natural world. A member of the Leopoldinian Academy, he wrote several short works on fossils and "formed stones," as fossils were conceived of in the period.

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