P., Imprimerie de Monsieur et Bossange, 1783/1792, 4 VOLUMES in 8 reliés en pleine basane, dos orné de filets dorés (reliures de l'époque), (manque de papier d'origine dans les marges extérieures ou inférieures des pages 129, 133 & 136 au tome 1), T.1: 38pp., (1), 623pp., T.2 : (2), 659pp., T.3 : (2), 611pp., T.4 (ATLAS) : 16pp., 80pp., 12 planches numérotées 1 à 8, 32 tableaux dépliants numérotés 1 à 7 pour l'ouvrage de ROME DE L'ISLE ; 8pp., 74pp., 1 planche dépliante pour l'ouvrage de SWEBACH DES FONTAINES
---- EDITION ORIGINALE ---- BEL EXEMPLAIRE ---- EX-LIBRIS Charles MONIER DE LA SIZERANNE ---- "ROME DE L'ISLE'S LAW OF THE CONSTANCY OF INTERFACIAL ANGLES" ---- "Romé De l'Isle shares the honor of having helped to found the science of crystallography along with Haüy, Steno and a few others". (Hoover Collection) ---- "Romé's chief scientific goal was the establishment of mineralogy on a firm basis of crystallography. His major contribution toward this end was the formulation of the law of the constancy of interfacial angles which became the cornestone of crystallography. Although earlier investigators - including Hooke, Erasmus Bartholin, Steno, Huygens, Philippe de la Hire and Guglielmini - had made incidental statements about such a constancy in one or two substances, Romé and Carangeot were the first to enunciate it as a general law of nature... His major work, the Cristallographie (1783), was first advertised as a second edition of his Essai, but instead it was expanded and comprised three volumes and an atlas describing more than 450 crystal forms. In this book rather than using any physical basis, Romé followed both Linnaeus and Domenico Guglielmini in classifying crystals by arbitrary primitive formes. Each crystal described was measured precisely. In the course of making terracotta models, Romé's assistant, Arnould Carangeot, had discovered the fundamental law of the constancy of interfacial angles ; and, using a contact goniometer invented for the purpose, he had made measurements of the interfacial angles (exact to about half a degree) of each mineral that Romé listed. Both these aspects - the tabulation of primitive forms and the measurement of interfacial angles - were of central importance to Romé's crystallography...". (DSB XI pp. 520/523)**4551/ARB5