REFLEXIONS SUR LA CAUSE GENERALE DES VENTS.: Pièce qui a remporté le Prix proposé par l’Académie Royale des Sciences de Berlin, pour l’année 1746.

4to, pp. [viii], xxviii, 194, 138; with two folding leaves of plates; engraved vignette on title-page and engraved headpiece, both by Eisen; prelims misbound, but complete, tear to lower corner of b1, not affecting text, and some spotting and foxing, mainly marginal; in contemporary calf, spine gilt in compartments with raised bands, gilt morocco lettering-piece; some wear, especially to joints and extremities.

First Paris printing, in the same year as the Berlin first, but unlike the Berlin issue also including the original Latin text of d'Alembert's prize essay, of this important essay on wind patterns and tides.

"In 1747 d'Alembert published two more important works, one of which, the Réflexions sur la cause générale des Vents, won a prize from the Prussian Academy. In it appear the first general use of partial differential equations in mathematical physics. Euler later perfected the techniques of using these equations . D'Alembert's treatise on winds was the only of his works honoured by a prize and, ironically, was later shown to be based on insufficient assumptions. D'Alembert assumed that wind patterns were the result of tidal effects on the atmosphere, and he relegated the influence of heat to a minor role, one that caused only local variations from the general circulation. Still, as a work on atmospheric tides it was successful, and Lagrange continued to praise d'Alembert's efforts many years later." (DSB I, p.113).

Norman 34.