Sale 2521 - Early Printed, Travel, Scientific & Medical Books, October 24, 2019

131 c   (AERONAUTICS.) Smythies, John Kinnersley. A. D. 1867, 4th September. Nº 2504. Steam Bird. Letters Patent . . . for the Invention of “Carrying Passengers through the Air by a Steam Bird or Flying Steam Engine fitted with Wings flapped by the Action of Steam” [caption title]. 4 folding plates. 9 pages; lacks final blank. 4to, 275x184 mm, disbound; paper quite fragile, plates toned and separating along folds, marginal toning and chipping along edges of text leaves. sold as is . (London: George Edward Eyre and William Spottiswoode, 1868) [300/500] Smythies (1808-92) was a British barrister who tried to develop a steam-powered ornithopter. This is the second of 5 patent specifications published from 1860 to 1884 for his invention, which apparently never progressed beyond the design stage. Jules Verne mentions him in passing in his 1886 aviation novel Robur- le-Conquérant (Robur the Conqueror). Kelly, Steam in the Air: The Application of Steam Power in Aviation during the 19th and 20th Centuries (2006), pages 45-46; Smythies, Records of the Smythies Family (1912), page 47. OCLC locates only the U. S. Air Force Academy copy. 132 c   AGRICOLA, GEORG. Libri quinque de mensuris & ponderibus. 4to, 199x129 mm, contemporary limp vellum, spine darkened, ends chipped, covers and endpapers wormed; dark marginal dampstaining at beginning and end; author and title in ink on bottom edges. Basel: Officina Frobeniana, 1533 [800/1,200] first edition of a study of Greco-Roman weights and measures. Hoover 13. 131 SCIENTIFIC BOOKS LOTS 131 - 163