"PETIT-VANDIN, M. DU. - HOW TO MAXIMIZE THE ENRGY EFFECT OF WATER-MILLS.
Reference : 45043
(1750)
(Paris, L'Imprimerie Royale, 1750). 4to. Extract from ""Mémoires de Mathematique et de Physique, Présentés à l'Academie des Sciences par divers Savans"", Tome I. Pp. 261-282 and 2 engraved plates. A small tear to lower margin of first leaf, no loss.
First printing of an importent memoir in hydraulics in which Petit-Vandin demonstrated that - contrary to the long held belief that float-boards on water-mills ought to be so proportioned, that when one of them was in vertical position, or at the middle of its immersion, the next one should be just entering the water - the more float-boards such a wheel has, the greater and more uniform will be the effects.