‎Crosland (Maurice)‎
‎The Society of Arcueil - A View of French Science at the Time of Napoleon 1 (Société d'Arcueil, Laplace and Berthollet)‎

‎Heinemann, London Malicorne sur Sarthe, 72, Pays de la Loire, France 1967 Book condition, Etat : Bon hardcover, editor's binding, under editor's black dust-jacket, illustrated by 6 figures in brown and white (portrait of Malus, among other) grand In-8 1 vol. - 534 pages‎

Reference : 100532

‎20 plates out of text with 29 illustrations (complete) 1st edition, 1967 "Contents, Chapitres : Contents, Preface, Manuscript sources, Acknowledgmnts, List of plates, Abbreviations, List of members of the Society, xx, Text, 514 pages - Introduction - Napoleon Bonaparte and science - The men of Arcueil - The organization of science in France at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century - Scientific institutions for teaching and research in early Nineteenth century France - The origins of the Society of Arcueil - The activities of the Society of Arcueil - The Memoires of the Society of Arcueil - Arcueil, the last phase, 1814-1822 - The influence of former members of the Society of Arcueil on Nineteenth century science - Bibliography, names index, subject index - La Société d'Arcueil est un cercle de scientifiques français qui se réunit dans les années 1806 à 1822 (mort de Berthollet), le dimanche dans le village d'Arcueil au sud de Paris. Les réunions du cercle ont lieu soit chez Laplace, soit chez Berthollet, qui ont des maisons voisines dans ce bourg (Laplace en 1801, Berthollet en 1806). Lors des réunions, les savants lisent des mémoires, comme à l'Académie des sciences. Gay-Lussac, puis Malus, y présentent pour la première fois des mémoires qui deviendront célèbres. Il y avait aussi des laboratoires de physique et de chimie à disposition. Cette société savante a produit les trois Mémoires de physique et de chimie de la Société d'Arcueil. - The members of Society d'Arcueil were : Pierre-Simon de Laplace - Claude Louis Berthollet - Étienne Louis Malus - Louis Joseph Gay-Lussac - Jean-Baptiste Biot - Augustin Pyramus de Candolle - Hyppolyte Victor Collet-Descotils or Descotils - Alexander von Humboldt - Louis Jacques Thenard - Dominique François Jean Arago - Jacques Étienne Bérard (1789-1869) - Jean-Antoine Chaptal - Pierre Louis Dulong - Siméon Denis Poisson - Laplace and Monge were instructed to supervise Robert Fulton's experiments with the Nautilus (1800),subsidized in France. Following Volta's visit to Paris in 1801 important work on the Voltaic pile, involving the Arcueil circle, was carried out under Bonaparte's auspices rewarding Paul Erman, Humphry Davy, Gay-Lussac and Louis Jacques Thenard in the process. The scientific work in general was of first importance to the education at the Ecole Polytechnique, the home base of many Arcueil scientists. The enhancing of the quality of iron and steel, with Collet-Descotils -the precursor in the discovery of iridium- in charge as chief engineer at the ""Ecole des Mines"", and above all the development of gunpowder were of prime military significance. The French expertise in explosives was well judged by the Allies when later they dispatched Jöns Jacob Berzelius to Paris to update general knowledge. In 1819 he spent two full months as a guest of Berthollet in the laboratory at Arcueil experimenting, but above all sounding Pierre Dulong whose memoir on a new detonating substance (nitrogen trichloride) had appeared in the 1817 volume of ""Mémoires de Physique et de Chimie de la Société d'Arcueil"" (André-Marie Ampère had already briefed Humphry Davy on prior stages (1811-1813) of Dulong's invention). There were three volumes of ""Mémoires de Physique et de Chimie de la Société d'Arcueil"": 1807, 1809 and 1817 -the last date testifying to the political difficulties following the demise of Napoleon I of France. The ""Mémoires..."" published some important new ideas: Malus on the polarisation of light (1809, 1817); Gay-Lussac on the free expansion of gases (1807); Humboldt and Gay-Lussac on terrestrial magnetism (1807); Gay-Lussac's law of combining volumes of gases (1809); Thenard and Biot's observation on the comparison of aragonite and calcite (one of the earliest proofs of dimorphism) (1809); Gay-Lussac and Thenard on the discovery of the amides of metal (1809) ; Candolle on heliotropism (1817)." dust-jacket is in rather near fine condition, lightly yellowing, with mino folding tracks on the top, inside is near fine, no markings, complete of the 20 plates. Among the best book about Societé d'Arcueil‎