Today’s Google doodle, which celebrates the 287th birthday of Dutch scientist Jan Ingenhousz, reminds us we hold this 1785 edition of his Nouvelles expériences et observations sur divers objets de physique. Dedicated to Ingenhousz’s friend and colleague Benjamin Franklin, the volume is a staff favorite because of its brightly marbled edges and endpages, elegant gilt spine, and engraved fold-out plates. Among the images above are an engraving depicting an apparatus for breathing “dephlogisticated air” (oxygen gas) and a description of pocket-sized electrical machine for shooting a pistol through “inflammable air” (hydrogen).
Jan Ingenhousz (1730-1799), Nouvelles expériences et observations sur divers objets de physique (Paris: Chez P. Théophile Barrois le jeune, 1785).
