Collected Papers (Note e Memorie). Volumes I & II. by Fermi, Enrico - 1962 & 65

Washington D.C.: The Smithsonian Institution, 1896. Hardcover. Excellent. 4to - over 9¾ - 12" tall. Large octavo. Original green cloth, titles to upper board gilt, yellow coated endpapers. Corners and tail of spine bumped slightly affecting leaves, else a very fresh copy in excellent condition. First separate edition, first printing of the first publication on the discovery of argon, which led to Nobel Prizes for its co-discoverers. "Few discoveries have been as dramatic as the discovery of argon in the atmosphere by Lord Rayleigh and William Ramsay, professor of chemistry at University College, London. The discovery of argon involved a bitter public dispute concerning the legitimacy of a chemical element whose most important characteristic was its inertness, and which forced the chemists to reassess the very notion of a chemical element." Rayleigh had begun work to determine the densities of atmospheric gases in 1882. In 1892 he uncovered a strange discrepancy between the atomic weight of… Read More

London: John Murray, 1847. Octavo (183 x 115 mm). Contemporary prize binding of green morocco, spine gilt in compartments, title, single-line rules, elaborate crests to boards, acorn and oak leaf roll to turn-ins, and all edges gilt, marbled endpapers. 5 folding plates on tissue, diagrams within the text. Prize and ownership bookplates to the front endpapers. Binding lightly rubbed with a few mild scuffs and some light wear at the extremities, a little faint spotting to the folding plates. Very good condition. Second edition with additions, first published in 1839. An attractively bound prize copy awarded by the Royal Military College at Sandhurst to Henry George White for "attention to, and progress in, military drawing". With White's later bookplate giving his rank as Major General. Author George Dominicus Burr (d. 1855), was for forty years an esteemed professor of military surveying at the Royal Military College, and it is presumably he himself who presented this prize volume. The contents cover… Read More

Liverpool: Matthews Brothers, Printers, [c. 1870s]. 64 page pamphlet. Original light blue wrappers printed in black. Engraving depicting the museum on the lower wrapper, 1 engraving within the text. Wrappers rubbed, dulled, and spotted, minor crease to the upper corner slightly affecting the contents. Very good condition. The rare catalogue of the Liverpool Museum of Anatomy, describing in detail the Museum's contents and policies, and illustrating its interior by an engraving on the lower cover. The Liverpool Museum of Anatomy was one of a number of such museums in the UK and US that specialised in wax anatomical models and, unlike many of the museums of professional medical organisations, were open to the public. Though the stated goal was always education, particularly regarding reproduction and the dangers of sexual vice, these museums also traded on the shock or titillation value of their exhibits and some were targeted by the medical establishment as purveyors of vice and quackery. The… Read More

New York, Morningside Heights: Columbia University Press, 1949. Octavo. Original blue cloth, titles to spine gilt. 1 double-sided plate, illustrations within the text. Very lightly rubbed at the tips, small blue sink spots on the upper edge of the text block. Excellent condition. Third printing of this influential work, originally published in 1944. From the library of molecular biologist Erwin Chargaff (1905-2002), with this ownership signature in ink on the front free endpaper. Chargaff's work elucidated key concepts about DNA and provided part of the groundwork for Watson and Crick's discovery of its structure. Chargaff's rules, as they are now known, state that the quantities of the four nucleotides are always linked - guanine matching that of cytosine and adenine with thiamine, and that the relative amounts of each vary from species to species. These observations strongly hinted that the nucleotides carried the genetic information (rather than the protein components, as had been thought… Read More

Chicago, IL: Max Rigo, 1911. Folding panoramic postcard (290 x 195 mm). Professionally mounted, gazed, and framed using archival materials. Composite photographic image depicting the Chicago lakefront and early planes. The sender's and receiver's details filled out in black ink, and four landmarks noted on the image in the same hand. Marks from stamp, some toning and spotting of the verso, creasing and wear, particularly near the original folds (which are fragile) and at the corners and slightly affecting the image, small tape repair to one corner on the verso. Very good condition. A striking, oversized panoramic postcard photomontage depicting one of the most important aviation events prior to the First World War, the August 1911 International Aviation Meet at Grant Park in Chicago. The Chicago meet was the largest airshow held up to that time, only eight years after the first powered flight by the Wright Brothers. Over the course of nine days thirty-three amateur and professional aviators… Read More

London: John Murray, 1847. Octavo (183 x 115 mm). Contemporary prize binding of green morocco, spine gilt in compartments, title, single-line rules, elaborate crests to boards, acorn and oak leaf roll to turn-ins, and all edges gilt, marbled endpapers. 5 folding plates on tissue, diagrams within the text. Prize and ownership bookplates to the front endpapers. Binding lightly rubbed with a few mild scuffs and some light wear at the extremities, a little faint spotting to the folding plates. Very good condition. Second edition with additions, first published in 1839. An attractively bound prize copy awarded by the Royal Military College at Sandhurst to Henry George White for "attention to, and progress in, military drawing". With White's later bookplate giving his rank as Major General. Author George Dominicus Burr (d. 1855), was for forty years an esteemed professor of military surveying at the Royal Military College, and it is presumably he himself who presented this prize volume. The contents cover… Read More

Liverpool: Matthews Brothers, Printers, [c. 1870s]. 64 page pamphlet. Original light blue wrappers printed in black. Engraving depicting the museum on the lower wrapper, 1 engraving within the text. Wrappers rubbed, dulled, and spotted, minor crease to the upper corner slightly affecting the contents. Very good condition. The rare catalogue of the Liverpool Museum of Anatomy, describing in detail the Museum's contents and policies, and illustrating its interior by an engraving on the lower cover. The Liverpool Museum of Anatomy was one of a number of such museums in the UK and US that specialised in wax anatomical models and, unlike many of the museums of professional medical organisations, were open to the public. Though the stated goal was always education, particularly regarding reproduction and the dangers of sexual vice, these museums also traded on the shock or titillation value of their exhibits and some were targeted by the medical establishment as purveyors of vice and quackery. The… Read More

New York, Morningside Heights: Columbia University Press, 1949. Octavo. Original blue cloth, titles to spine gilt. 1 double-sided plate, illustrations within the text. Very lightly rubbed at the tips, small blue sink spots on the upper edge of the text block. Excellent condition. Third printing of this influential work, originally published in 1944. From the library of molecular biologist Erwin Chargaff (1905-2002), with this ownership signature in ink on the front free endpaper. Chargaff's work elucidated key concepts about DNA and provided part of the groundwork for Watson and Crick's discovery of its structure. Chargaff's rules, as they are now known, state that the quantities of the four nucleotides are always linked - guanine matching that of cytosine and adenine with thiamine, and that the relative amounts of each vary from species to species. These observations strongly hinted that the nucleotides carried the genetic information (rather than the protein components, as had been thought… Read More

Chicago, 1952-53. Including 3 typed letters signed (one with the signature removed for reproduction in Vistas in Astronomy) and 2 autograph letters signed by Urey. Housed in Beer's tan paper folder with "Urey" in ink on the cover. Just a little creasing to some pieces. Excellent condition. An archive of correspondence between astronomer Arthur Beer and Nobel Prize winning chemist Harold Urey regarding the latter's contribution to Vistas in Astronomy. Beer (1900-1980) was born in Richenberg, Bohemia (later Czechoslovakia), and educated in Austria and Germany. He worked as an astronomer at Breslau University, where he studied binary stars, and at the German Maritime Observatory. He also wrote newspaper columns and was responsible for developing one of the first scientific radio programmes, Aus Natur und Technik. Beer escaped from Germany in 1934, assisted by Einstein, who wrote him a public letter of recommendation, and spent the rest of his life in the UK. He worked at the Cambridge Solar Physics… Read More

Stockholm: Kongl. Boktryckeriet. P. A. Norstedt & Söner, 1890. Tall quarto (300 x 230 mm). Recent burgundy quarter morocco, marbled boards, titles to spine gilt. Title page just a little toned. Excellent condition. First edition of this significant work in which Rydberg lays out the empirical formulae governing the frequencies of spectral lines, a precursor to Bohr's development of the quantum theory. A handsomely bound copy in excellent condition. Johannes Rydberg (1854-1919) was a Swedish physicist at Lund University who studied atomic masses and electromagnetic radiation; inspired by Mendeleev's periodic table, he was convinced that the electromagnetic spectra emitted by atoms could provide insight into atomic structure and theory. "Notwithstanding the imperfect spectroscopic tables then at his disposal, Rydberg discovered most of the important properties of series spectra, including the relation between corresponding series in the spectra of related elements, and foreshadowed discoveries which… Read More