
BOYLE (ROBERT) The Aerial Noctiluca: or Some New Phoenomena, and a Process of a Facticious Self-Shining Substance, FIRST EDITION, Printed by Thomas Snowden, and are to be sold by Nathaniel Ranew, 1680
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BOYLE (ROBERT)
Footnotes
First edition of Boyle's important tract on spontaneous luminescence and phosphorence. Having witnessed the wandering showman, J.D. Krafft, demonstrate his kalte Feuer to Charles II, Boyle "was led to isolate phosphorus which had been independently isolated by the German chemist K. Brand (or Brandt) in 1667. Boyle then published his two celebrated tracts, the first on Aerial Noctiluca as he called it—the 'stuff' that gives fireflies their glow" (Fulton).
Provenance: Thomas Bulkley, early ownership inscription on title-page; John Lumley-Savile, 8th Earl of Scarbrough (1788-1856), gilt arms on covers; Rufford Abbey, bookplate. See illustration on preceding page.