Description des expériences de la machine aérostatique de MM. de Montgolfier, et de celles auxquelles cette découverte a donné lieu [...]. Ouvrage orné de neuf planches en taille-douce, représentant les diverses machines qui ont été construites jusqu'à ce jour, particulièrement celle de Versailles, & celle dans laquelle des hommes ont été enlevés jusqu'à la hauteur de 324 pieds, &c. &c.

8vo: front.-xxix-[1 bl.]-204 pp.; 1 table and 8 pl. on blue paper (marg. wormtrack or wormhole(s)).

Original wrappers (rubbed, front cover loosening). Untrimmed copy.

Rare edition printed in Brussels (1st: Paris, 1783) of the "first serious treatise on aerostation as a practical possibility" (PMM). Illustrated with 9 plates (incl. the frontispiece) by Sellier depicting the flight of the aerostat "Réveillon" by Étienne Montgolfier with the first living beings (a sheep, a duck and a rooster) in Versailles on 19 September 1783, the balloon, its assembly, instruments, mathematical sketches, a flying boat and the balloon in which the scientist Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, Jean-Baptiste Réveillon and Giroud de Villette took the first balloon flight with people on board on 19 October 1783. With a fold. comparative table of the balloon movements. The geologist and traveller Faujas de Saint-Fond (1741-1819), was also interested in aeronautics and helped the Montgolfier brothers to earn money in order to continue building their balloons.
Ref. PMM 229. - "En français dans la texte", 175. - Cp. Tissandier, Bibliogr. aéronautique, p. 21 (1st. ed. of vol. I and its "Suite") and Cohen 372 (id.). - Cp. Honeyman coll. 1272 (ed. B. Le Francq). - Not in Maggs Bros.