Products
(Brenner, Sydney) Douarin, Nicole le | Dans le Secret des Êtres Vivants
£250.00
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First edition, first impression, paperback issue. Presentation copy inscribed by the author to Nobel Prize-winning biologist Sydney Brenner on the half title, “It has been great to have the chance to know you. Thanks to Gulbenkian! With my admiration and my sincére amitié, these pages about my life in science. Paris, le 26 Juillet 2012, Nicole le Douarin”. Gulbenkian probably refers to the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, a philanthropic organisation which may have held a conference or other event at which Douarin and Brenner met.
Recipient Sydney Brenner (1927 - ) has been a leader in the field of genetics almost from the moment he received his doctorate at Oxford in 1954. He joined Francis Crick’s laboratory in 1956, and they did groundbreaking research on how DNA is decoded by cells. Brenner proposed that the nucleotides which comprise DNA (adenine, guanine, thiamine and cytosine) are read by the cell in sets of three called codons, with each codon representing an amino acid (for example, three adenines in a row is the codon for the amino acid lysine). A gene is simply a string of codons that directs the production of a protein molecule from individual amino acids. He also correctly predicted the existence of messenger RNA, the molecule that carries the genetic code from the nucleus to the ribosomes, where the translation process occurs.
Following this work, it was Brenner’s efforts to establish a new laboratory organism for the study of genetics that led to his Nobel Prize. “Beginning in 1965, he began to lay the groundwork to make C. elegans, a small, transparent nematode, into a major model organism for genetics, neurobiology and developmental biology research. As a direct result of his original vision, this tiny worm became the first animal for which the complete cell lineage and entire neuronal wiring were known. Today, more than 1,000 investigators are studying C. elegans, and Brenner’s work was further honored when a closely related nematode was named Caenorhabditis brenneri” (Salk Institute biography).
Author Nicole le Douarin (1930 - ) is a leader in the field of developmental biology. She has designed important techniques for studying differentiation in embryos, most importantly the creation of chimeras in which cells from two different species can be individually tracked as they develop into organ systems. Crucially, she used this technique to elucidate the early development of the nervous and immune systems. Douarin has recieved numerous accolades for her work. “In 1988 she was only the third woman in 500 years to be admitted as a member of the College de France. In 1989 she was elected as a member of the US National Academy of Science and in 1990 as a fellow of the Royal Society. She also received the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine in 1990 and in 1991 she became an officer of the Légion d’Honneur. In 1993 she received the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University. She is an honorary fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (2002) and was the first recipient of the Pearl Meister Greengard Prize for women in science and biology (2004)” (The Embryo Project Encyclopedia).
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...Itinéraire d'une Biologiste. Péreface de Mona Ozouf et Michelle Perrot.
Paris: Robert Laffont, 2012.
Pefect bound. Original white wrappers printed in blue and black. With the publisher’s wraparound band. Minor bump to head of spine. An excellent, fresh copy.
(Brenner, Sydney) Todd, Alexander | A Time to Remember. The Autobiography of a Chemist
£450.00
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First edition, first impression. From the library of Nobel Prize-winning biologist Sydney Brenner, presentation copy inscribed from the author to Brenner on the front blank, “With respect and warmest wishes, Alexander Todd, 24th May 1984”.
The author, biochemist Alexander Todd (1907-1997), was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1957 “for his work on the synthesis of nucleotides (the small units that make up the larger molecule of nucleic acids), the hereditary material of cells. This work led to many important advances in chemistry and biochemistry”, including the elucidation of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick (Shampo, “Alexander Todd”, Mayo Clinic Proceedings, March 2012).
Recipient Sydney Brenner was a leader in the field of genetics almost from the moment he received his doctorate at Oxford in 1954. He joined Francis Crick’s laboratory in 1956, and they did groundbreaking research on how DNA is decoded by cells. Brenner proposed that the nucleotides which comprise DNA (adenine, guanine, thiamine and cytosine) are read by the cell in sets of three called codons, with each codon representing an amino acid (for example, three adenines in a row is the codon for the amino acid lysine). A gene is simply a string of codons that directs the production of a protein molecule from individual amino acids. He also correctly predicted the existence of messenger RNA, the molecule that carries the genetic code from the nucleus to the ribosomes, where the translation process occurs.
Following this work, it was Brenner’s efforts to establish a new laboratory organism for the study of genetics that led to his Nobel Prize. “Beginning in 1965, he began to lay the groundwork to make C. elegans, a small, transparent nematode, into a major model organism for genetics, neurobiology and developmental biology research. As a direct result of his original vision, this tiny worm became the first animal for which the complete cell lineage and entire neuronal wiring were known. Today, more than 1,000 investigators are studying C. elegans, and Brenner’s work was further honored when a closely related nematode was named Caenorhabditis brenneri” (Salk Institute biography).
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Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Octavo. Original blue cloth, titles to spine in silver. With the dust jacket. Remnants of a price sticker to the front flap of the jacket. Lower corner bumped. An excellent copy in the lightly rubbed jacket that is a little faded along the spine panel.
(Brenner, Sydney) Wollman, E. L. & F. Jacob | La Sexualité des Bactéries
£4,750.00
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First edition, first impression of this uncommon and important monograph on bacterial genetics. An exceptional presentation copy signed by author François Jacob, with whom Brenner would partner only a year later to perform one of the most elegant experiments in the history of biochemistry, proving the role of messenger RNA and elucidating a key mechanism in the cell’s process for decoding DNA. Cheekily inscribed by Jacob’s co-author, Elie Wollman (1917-2008), “To Sydney Brenner, to disgust him / a good of bacterial sex” (possibly missing the word “dose” or similar before “bacterial sex”). And with Brenner’s ownership signature in pencil on the upper cover.
Wollman and Jacob were bacteriologists at the Pasteur Institute who, by investigating bacterial reproduction, made groundbreaking discoveries in genetics. They published one of the first examples of a gene regulatory mechanism; discovered plasmids (portions of genetic material independent of the chromosomal DNA); and created the first model of gene mapping in a living organism” (Dantzer, “Elie Wollman 1917-2008: A Biographical Memoir, National Academy of Science, 2008). The present volume covers the breadth of contemporary knowledge of bacterial reproduction, including conjugation and the resulting genetic recombination. Jacob was later awarded the Nobel Prize for work on the regulation of enzyme levels in cells, and Wollman received several awards, including the French Legion of Honour.
Recipient Sydney Brenner (1927-2019) was a leader in the field of genetics almost from the moment he received his doctorate at Oxford in 1954. He joined Francis Crick’s Cambridge laboratory in 1956, and they performed innovative research on how DNA is decoded by cells. Brenner proposed that the nucleotides which comprise DNA (adenine, guanine, thiamine and cytosine) are read by the cell in groups of three called codons, with each codon representing an amino acid (for example, three adenines in a row is the codon for the amino acid lysine). A gene is therefore a string of codons that directs the production of a specific protein molecule from individual amino acids. He would later win the Nobel Prize for his work establishing the nematode c. elegans as a key model organism for genetics, neurobiology and developmental biology research.
Brenner met Jacob and Wollman at a symposium on microbial genetics in Copenhagen in 1959 (it was almost certainly on this occasion, or shortly afterwards, that this copy was presented), where Jacob hoped to discuss new evidence for the existence of an intermediary molecule responsible for transporting information from DNA in the nucleus to the site of protein production in cellular structures called ribosomes, located outside the nucleus. It was known that ribosomes contained an analogue to DNA, ribosomal nucleic acid (RNA), but it was not clear whether there were intermediaries between DNA and RNA. Though nothing concrete came of the Copenhagen symposium, the following spring Jacob again brought up the subject during a meeting with Brenner, Crick, and other biochemists at Cambridge. As Jacob later recalled, when he pointed out recent experimental results suggesting that, unlike normal RNA, the messenger molecule was unstable, “Francis and Sydney leaped to their feet. Began to gesticulate. To argue at top speed in great agitation. A red-faced Francis. A Sydney with bristling eyebrows. The two talked at once, all but shouting. Each trying to anticipate the other. To explain to the other what had suddenly come to mind” (Jacob, The Statue Within, p. 312). What Brenner and Crick had suddenly remembered was another experiment showing that when a certain virus attacked bacterial cells it blocked the creation of new ribosomes, and the only RNA then manufactured by the cell was both unstable and had the same base composition as DNA, strongly suggesting that it was the messenger molecule.
That afternoon Brenner and Jacob also learned that they had both been invited to spend the month of June as visiting scholars at Caltech, the perfect opportunity to collaborate and prove that there was an intermediary in the DNA decoding process and that it was the previously discovered unstable RNA. Most importantly, the colleague who had invited Jacob, Mat Meselson, had just developed a new method for marking bacterial macromolecules with heavy isotopes. Brenner and Jacob developed a plan “to distinguish whether, after phage (virus) infection, new RNA went to new ribosomes, or whether there were no new ribosomes, just the preexisting ones ‘for hire’ – Brenner’s phrase at the time – to the new message when it came along. So that old ribosomes could be labelled, the bacteria would be grown with heavy carbon and nitrogen, the bacteria switched to a broth containing normal, lighter isotopes and simultaneously infected with phage, and new RNA labelled with radiophosphorous. Then ribosomes would be separated from bacteria, put into a cesium-chloride solution, and spun at thirty-seven thousand revolutions per minute for thirty-six hours... in this enormous centrifugal force... the cesium chloride in the solution became distributed in a gradient that was denser towards the bottom of the tube; anything of like density in the tube would sink or float to the level that exactly corresponded with it. Thus, ribosomal particles grown heavy before infection would form a band farther down the centrifuge tube than any made after infection when the isotopic labels were light. Radioactivity could then be checked in each band of ribosomes” (Judson, The Eighth Day of Creation, p. 423).
With only four weeks to complete the experiment, Brenner and Jacob worked at speed and had to overcome numerous setbacks, from the difficulty of acquiring radioactive phosphorus to problems caused by a lack of magnesium in their culture medium. But the final result was “spectacular. Eyes glued to the Geiger counter, our throats tight, we tracked each successive figure as it came to take its place in exactly the order we had been expecting. And as the last sample was counted, a double shout of joy shook the basement at Caltech. Followed immediately by a wild double jig. This was merely one experiment, performed in extremis… But we now knew that we had won. That our conception explained the transfers of information in the synthesis of proteins… Scarcely was the experiment over than we gave a seminar at Caltech to demonstrate the existence of X and its role as magnetic tape. No one believed us. The next day we left, each to his own home. The bet had paid off. In the nick of time” (Jacob, p. 317).
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Paris: Masson et Cie, Libraires de l’Académie de Médecine, 1959.
Octavo. Original grey wrappers printed in black. 3 double-sided plates from photographs. Wrappers rubbed, a little creased, and partially tanned with a few small spots and marks. Slight crease affecting the margins of the first half of the contents. A very good copy.
(Gould, Stephen Jay) Mitchell, W. J. T. | The Last Dinosaur Book
£200.00
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First edition, first printing. Presentation copy inscribed by the author to palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould on the front free endpaper, “For Steven [sic], This was written to you. Warm regards, Tim Mitchell”. Loosely inserted is a bookmark promoting Gould’s talk “Pattern and Lack of Progress in the History of Life”, the keynote lecture for Dinofest International 1996.
The Last Dinosaur Book was the first comprehensive, critical enquiry into the depiction of dinosaurs in popular culture, revealing “a cultural symbol whose plurality of meaning and often contradictory nature is emblematic of modern society itself”. Author W. J. T. Mitchell is a professor of English literature and art history at the University of Chicago. “A scholar and theorist of media, visual art, and literature, Mitchell is associated with the emergent fields of visual culture and iconology (the study of images across the media). He is known especially for his work on the relations of visual and verbal representations in the context of social and political issues” and is editor of the journal Critical Inquiry and the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (University of Chicago biography).
Recipient Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) was one of the leading evolutionary biologists of the 20th century. His theory of punctuated equilibria challenged the idea that evolution is a slow and constant accumulation of changes, pointing out that instead it often occurs in rapid bursts of speciation followed by periods of stasis. He was a prominent defender of teaching evolution in schools and a leading critic of the field of sociobiology, which he saw as providing a pseudoscientific basis for discrimination. But he was best known as a popular science writer, penning three hundred essays that were originally published in Natural History Magazine.
Gould is cited in the text several times, on the “archetypal fascination” of dinosaurs as “alluringly scary, but sufficiently safe” because of their extinction; on their commercialisation turning them from “sources of awe into clichés and commodities”; and on contemporary scientific disputes about dinosaur biology and evolution.
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...The Life and Times of a Cultural Icon. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Octavo. Original blue cloth, titles to spine in copper, blue endpapers. With the dust jacket. Colour illustrations throughout. Just a tiny spot of delamination at the lower edge of the jacket. An excellent, fresh copy.
(Gould, Stephen Jay) Wilford, John Noble | The Riddle of the Dinosaur
£250.00
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First edition, first printing. Presentation copy inscribed by the author on the half title, “To Stephen Jay Gould, Many thanks for the inspiration of your essays. Best wishes, John Noble Wilford”.
A lovely copy of this popular account of recent developments in dinosaur palaeontology, including the discoveries that they were likely warm-blooded and that a comet probably caused their extinction, by Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist John Noble Wilford (1933 - ). Wilford was responsible for the paper’s front-page story on the Apollo 11 Moon landing in 1969, and his by-line was the only one that appeared on the front page that day. Stephen Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics, described one of the sentences in the Moon landing piece – describing Armstrong’ heart-rate during the descent to the surface – as “one of the most elegant little uses of data I can recall seeing in a news article” (Dubner, “When Data Tell the Story”, Freakonomics blog, July 21, 2009).
Recipient Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) was one of the leading evolutionary biologists of the 20th century. His theory of punctuated equilibria challenged the idea that evolution is a slow and constant accumulation of changes, pointing out that instead it often occurs in rapid bursts of speciation followed by periods of stasis. He was a prominent defender of teaching evolution in schools and a leading critic of the field of sociobiology, which he saw as providing a pseudoscientific basis for discrimination. But he was best known as a popular science writer, penning three hundred essays that were originally published in Natural History Magazine. In 1991 Wilford reviewed Gould’s fifth essay collection, Bully for Brontosaurus, calling its contents “provocative and delightfully discursive”.
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...Drawings by Douglas Henderson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985.
Quarto. Original grey boards, cream cloth backstrip, titles to spine and author’s name to upper board in gilt and copper. With the dust jacket. 6 colour plates, illustrations and charts within the text. An excellent copy in the jacket with just a couple of miniscule rubbed spots and faint toning along the upper edges.
(Landsberg, Peter) Hawking, Stephen W. | A Brief History of Time
£350.00
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First edition, the corrected second printing of this landmark popular work on the quest for the Grand Unified Theory. From the library of physicist Peter Landsberg, with his ownership signature, notes and highlighting, and letter to him loosely inserted.
Peter Landsberg (1922-2010), was a German Jewish refugee to Britain who earned his PhD in quantum mechanics at Imperial College London in 1949 and joined the faculties of the Universities of Cardiff and Southampton. “Landsberg was not solely interested in one branch of physics, he was interested in physics in general and this boyish enthusiasm took his research to all areas of theoretical work”, among them the quantum phenomenon known as bose condensation, the relationship between quantum mechanics and living things, thermodynamics, cosmology, and applications of solar energy. He is best known for his explication of “Landsberg efficiency”, the theoretical limits on how much solar power can be converted to electricity in a given situation (obituary in The Scotsman, May 23, 2010).
Landsberg has made numerous short notes — often page number references — and underlined a number of passages, primarily in chapters 8: The Origin and Fate of the Universe and 9: The Arrow of Time, that deal with thermodynamics and the inflationary model of the universe. Loosely inserted is a typed letter signed to Landsberg from Canon Robert Winnett (1910-1989), to whom the book had been loaned, and who writes that it conveyed to him “a sense of the infinite mystery of the universe, and of unplumbed depths still to be explored, an attitude which is surely akin to the religious”. He goes on the discuss how scientific ideas about the origin of the universe might align with Christianity and other religions, ending with the thought that “we are dealing with probabilities rather than certainties... The origins of religion lie in dimensions of human experience other than the scientific, and any cosmological theory can be interpreted theistically, or if we will, atheistically”.
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...From the Big Bang to Black Holes. Introduction by Carl Sagan. Illustrations by Ron Miller. New York: Bantam Books, 1988.
Octavo. Original black quarter cloth, dark grey boards, title to spine in silver, Hawking’s monogram to upper board in blind. With the dust jacket. Illustrations throughout the text. Binding a little rubbed and bumped. A very good copy in the rubbed and creased jacket with some bubbling of the plastic coating, especially along folds.
(Ratcliffe, Derek) Howard, H. Eliot | Territory in Bird Life.
£100.00
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First edition, first impression of the book that popularised the modern understanding of territoriality among male birds. From the library of the important conservationist Derek Ratcliffe (1929-2005), who discovered the effect of DDT-related eggshell thinning on peregrine falcon populations. With his ownership inscription on the front free endpaper, dated 24 July, 1964.
Author H. Elliot Howard (1873-1940) was an amateur ornithologist whose study of warblers led him to the conclusion that male birds fight not for females, but directly for territory, which then attracts females. This was first explicated in The British Warblers: a History with Problems of Their Lives (published in parts between 1907 and 14). The lavishly illustrated work was well-reviewed, but too expensive for a general readership, so Howard published Territory in Bird Life in 1920. This popular work explores all aspects of territory among many different species, and “from the late 1920s the theory became increasingly influential both in Europe and the United States” (Online Dictionary of National Biography).
“Howard was not, in fact, the first person to discover territory in birds for, unknown to him, J. B. Altum in 1868 in Germany and C. B. Moffat in 1903 in Ireland had described its main features. However, it was Howard's persuasive and extensive exposition of the concept that established its importance and brought it to international ornithological notice; it is a striking example of an amateur significantly influencing modern scientific research” (ODNB).
This former owner of this copy was Derek Ratcliffe, one of the most influential British conservationists of the 20th century. Ratcliffe was educated as a botanist, completing his PhD at Bangor in 1953, and then being appointed a scientific officer for the Nature Conservancy in Edinburgh. He made important surveys of plant and bird communities in the Scottish Highlands, many of which had never been studied in detail. During 1961-62 he completed the first survey of British peregrine falcons, discovering that they were declining in numbers and even ceasing to breed at all in some areas. "The cause of the decline was persistent pesticides, notably DDT, which caused eggshell thinning and catastrophic breeding failure. Ratcliffe published a classic paper on eggshell thinning in the journal Nature in 1967, and a more detailed paper in the Journal of Applied Ecology in 1970, both of which were among the most frequently cited ornithological scientific publications" (ODNB).
In the 1960s and 70s, as scientific assessor for the Nature Conservancy, he led efforts to inventory Britain’s most important natural sites. “At the heart of this work was the exposition of a philosophy for nature conservation founded on the use of such concepts as 'diversity', 'fragility', and 'naturalness', which enabled scientists systematically to compare sites and even regions. This became, and remained, the cornerstone of nature conservation, culminating in the publication of the two-volume book edited by Ratcliffe, A Nature Conservation Review (1977)” (ODNB). During the 1980s he led the movement to establish sites of special scientific interest throughout Britain, and was a key player in the drive to prevent industrial scale pine tree planting on the critically important flow country habitat in northern Scotland.
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...With Illustrations by G. E. Lodge and H. Grönvold. London: John Murray, 1920.
Octavo. Original blue cloth, titles to spine gilt. Colour frontispiece and 10 black and white plates with tissue guards, double-page map. Errata slip at page 238, single leaf of publisher’s ads at rear. Binding lightly rubbed at the extremities, faint spotting to the edges of the text block, free endpapers partially tanned. An excellent copy.
Bacon, Gertrude | Memories of Land and Sky
£350.00
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First edition of the memoirs of the first Englishwoman to fly. Inscribed by the author, using her married name, on the title page, “(Gertrude Foggitt) – Sept. 1936”.
Gertrude Bacon (1874-1949) was the daughter of the scientist and balloonist Rev. John Maczenzie Bacon, and she accompanied him on most of his expeditions. "Bacon became fascinated by flying and as a journalist reported on the various airships and planes being built." In August 1904 she became the first woman to fly in an airship, being a passenger in the near-disastrous first flight of an 84-foot-long ship designed by Stanley Spencer. "From 22 to 29 August, 1909, the world's first aviation meeting was held at Rheims, France. Bacon was determined to go for a ride in one of the new machines. On the last day she was taken up in a Farman plane, squeezed between the radiator and the pilot. She described the takeoff: 'The motion was wonderfully smooth - smoother yet - and then - ! Suddenly there had come into it a new indescribable quality - a lift - a lightness - a life!' Thus she became the first Englishwoman to fly" (International Women in Science: A Biographical Dictionary, p. 15). Bacon flew on several other occasions, and became the first ever hydroplane passenger at Lake Windermere in 1912. Bacon became Gertrude Foggitt in 1929, when she married fellow botanist and chemist Thomas Jackson Foggitt.
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...With Twenty-Four Illustrations. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1928.
Octavo. Original blue cloth, titles to spine gilt and to upper board in blind. 8-page publisher’s ads at rear. Portrait frontispiece and 15 plates from black and white photographs. Spine cocked, cloth a little rubbed at the extremities, two shallow dents in the upper board, lower corner bumped, some spotting to the contents, particularly the early leaves, and edges of the text block. Very good condition.
Baxter, James Finney | Scientists Against Time
£350.00
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First edition, first printing of the Pulitzer Prize-winning account of Allied technological development during the Second World War. Inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “To Betty Way Brown, with best wishes, James P. Baxter 3rd”.
Author James F. Baxter (1893-1975) was a historian and for more than twenty years the popular president of Williams College in Massachusetts. During the Second World War he served as research coordinator of information (1941-1943) and director of the Office of Strategic Services (1942-1943), and the work for this book was undertaken during the latter part of the war while he served as the historical researcher for the Office of Scientific Research and Development. It includes chapters on submarine and air warfare, radar and LORAN, rocketry, proximity fuses, fire control technologies, new explosives and propellants, antimalarials, blood transfusion, penicillin, aviation medicine, and the Manhattan Project, among others.
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...With Illustrations. An Atlantic Monthly Press Book. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1946.
Octavo. Original grey cloth, titles and design to spine and upper board blocked in red and blue, top edge dyed red. Frontispiece and 33 double-sided plates from photographs, 3 illustrations within the text. Spine toned, cloth slightly rubbed, endpapers tanned, light spotting to the edges of the text block and occasionally to the contents.
Bonnevie, Kristine | "Chromosomenstudien III
£250.00
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Offprint, presentation copy inscribed by the author on the upper wrapper, “Schrader, with kind regards of the author”.
Cell biologist Kristine Bonnevie (1872-1949) was Norway’s first female professor and the first woman member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences. She studied with chromosome researcher Theodor Boveri in Germany, and was awarded a PhD in 1906 for her study of sex cells. “The problem of chromosome halving in the sex cells was not well understood at the time, and her work challenged the classic work of the Norwegian cytologists Alette and Kristian Emil Schreiner. In response to criticism by the Schreiners about her chromosomal work, Bonnevie went to Columbia University where she worked on sex chromosomes in the sea snake, under E. B. Wilson, verifying her earlier work... In 1908, she extended her work to non-dividing chromosomes in related organisms. She continued work on mitosis even after she gave up other work in cytology (Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science).” On Bonnevie’s return to Norway she became a professor of zoology at the University of Oslo (then Christiana) and did significant work on human genetic diseases and fingerprint patterns. “By 1949, almost every Norwegian cytologist had been trained by her” (BDWS). Bonnevie received a number of awards for her social and political work, including being made St. Olaf knight, First Class, for organising deliveries of food to the Norwegian resistance during the Second World War.
The subject of this paper is the maturation of chromatin in the chromosomes of the common onion, chromatin being the cellular material that packages the usually-loose DNA into dense chromosomes in preparation for cell division. The recipient is uncertain, but may have been the prominent chromosome researcher Franz Schrader (1891-1962) or his wife, Sally, also a cytologist in her own right (1895-1984). Franz Schrader was a generation younger than Bonnevie, but it’s possible that this offprint was sent to him sometime after publication, perhaps as part of correspondence between the two scientists. Schrader was certainly well aware of Bonnevie’s work, and in 1935 cited her in the first paragraph of his paper “Notes on the Mitotic Behaviour of Long Chromosomes” in the journal Cytologia.
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...Chromatinreifung in Allium cepa. Mit 4 Tafeln." Offprint from The Archiv for Zellforschung volume 6, number 2.
Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1911.
Octavo. Original grey wrappers printed in black. 4 plates of which 1 is folding and the others are double-page. Ownership signature “Ric” and short note on the upper wrapper. Wrappers a little toned at the extremities, lightly rubbed, lower corner bumped, contents faintly toned. A very good copy.
Bowman, Martie | Calendar for 1936 depicting pilot Martie Bowman in her WACO INF biplane.
£450.00
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A remarkable piece of early aviation ephemera, this calendar was produced as a Christmas greeting by the early female aviator Marguerite (Martie) Bowman (1901-1985) and her husband Leslie, also a pilot. It depicts Bowman flying in her WACO INF biplane, registration number NC625Y, in formation with two others, and includes portraits of Bowman, her husband, and their daughter Larnie Bowman Allen. We have learned from one of the Bowmans’ grandchildren that Larnie joined the family profession, becoming a wing-walker at eight and soloing at twelve.
The Bowmans established an aviation business together and, during the 1920s, 30s and 40s, Martie Bowman ferried planes from factories and regularly participated in air races. She competed in the 1930 Women’s Dixie Air Derby from Washington D. C. to Chicago, and won the Women’s International Air Derby of 1934 and the two-day women’s championship Shell Trophy Cup at Long Beach, California. In her biography of fellow pilot Phoebie Omlie, Janann Sherman recounts that during the Dixie Derby Bowman selflessly assisted Omlie, who had an injury, by waking up each hour during the night to apply medicated drops to her eyes (Sherman, Walking on Air, p. 65).
The Bowman’s papers are held at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, and as of 2001 two of Martie Bowman’s planes were still registered as flight-worthy with the FAA.
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[Olympia, WA], 1935.
Silver gelatin composite photograph (250 x 200 mm) with small tear-off monthly calendar for 1936. Inscribed “Merry Christmas, The Bowmans”. A few minor nicks and spots at the edges. Excellent, unused condition.
G. Nicolis & I. Prigogine | Self-Organization in Nonequilibrium Systems
£500.00
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First edition first printing. Presentation copy inscribed by Nobel Prize winner Ilya Prigogine, and also signed by co-author Grégoire Nicolis, for fellow physicist Peter Landsberg. Books signed by either Prigogine and Nicolis are uncommon. With a small pencilled notation of Landsberg’s on page 34 also repeated with a question mark on the front free endpaper.
Ilya Prigogine (1917-2003) is today one of the most well-known figures in the field of chaos theory. Though others before him, primarily Lars Onsager, had investigated the thermodynamics of irreversible processes (such as metabolic reactions in living things, or the boiling of an egg), it was Priogione who extended our understanding of them to systems that were far from equilibrium. His most important contribution was the discovery that in these systems chaos can lead to the development of ordered structures that only exist in conjunction with their environment. These he called “dissipative structures” to differentiate them from equilibrium structures (such as crystals) that can exist as isolated systems. “The most well-known dissipative structure is perhaps the so-called Benárd instability. This is formed when a layer of liquid is heated from below. At a given temperature heat conduction starts to occur predominantly through convection, and it can be observed that regularly spaced, hexagonal convection cells are formed in the layer of liquid. This structure is wholly dependent on the supply of heat and disappears when this ceases” (Noble Prize biography). The present volume covers all aspects of this new field, from the mathematical models underpinning it, to its application in chemistry, cell biology, and even the flows of energy across whole ecosystems.
Co-author Grégoire Nicolis (1939-2018) was also a leader in this new field of complex systems in statistical mechanics. His work — frequently in collaboration with Prigione — produced important “early discoveries in chaos theory” that “constitute part of its foundations as they brought forth deep connections on nonlinear dynamics and out-of-equilibrium processes in physics and chemistry at large” (Basios, “Grégoire Nicolis of the Founders of Complexity Science, a Recollection”, Nonlinear Phenomena in Complex Systems, vol. 23, no. 2, 2020, p. 102).
The recipient of this volume, Peter Landsberg (1922-2010), was a German Jewish refugee to Britain who earned his PhD in quantum mechanics at Imperial College London in 1949 and joined the faculties of the Universities of Cardiff and Southampton. “Landsberg was not solely interested in one branch of physics, he was interested in physics in general and this boyish enthusiasm took his research to all areas of theoretical work”, which included the quantum phenomenon known as bose condensation, the relationship between quantum mechanics and living things, thermodynamics, cosmology, and applications of solar energy. He is best known for his explication of “Landsberg efficiency”, the theoretical limits on how much solar power can be converted to electricity in a given situation (obituary in The Scotsman, May 23, 2010).
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...From Dissipative Structures to Order through Fluctuations. New York: a Wiley-Interscience Publication, John Wiley & Sons, 1977.
Octavo. Original blue-grey cloth, titles to spine and ISBN on lower board in metallic blue, publisher’s device to upper board in blind. With the dust jacket. Diagrams and illustrations throughout the text. Cloth slightly rubbed at the tips, two small worn spots on the edge of the upper board. A very good copy in the jacket that is creased and worn with some closed tears and small chips.
Glenie, James | The Doctrine of Universal Comparison, or General Proportion [Bound together with] A Geometrical Investigation of Some Curious and Interesting Properties of the Circle
£450.00
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A mathematical sammelband containing the first editions of two scarce texts by the soldier and mathematician James Glenie (1750-1817). The second Glenie volume, A Geometrical Investigation of Some Curious and Interesting Properties of the Circle, is inscribed “From the Author”, and contains a long equation and seven small textual corrections in the same ink, but it is unclear if this is an authorial or secretarial hand.
During his education at St. Andrews Glenie showed aptitude for science and mathematics, but on the outbreak of the American War of Independence he enlisted and was sent to North America, becoming second lieutenant in the engineers in 1776.
“In 1774, while in the army, it seems that Glenie discovered the 'antecedental calculus', and wrote 'a small performance' of it in Latin which was printed in July 1776. He sent a paper on this to the Royal Society, which was read in 1777 and published the following year. At much the same time Glenie wrote papers entitled 'The division of right lines, surfaces and solids' and 'The general mathematical laws which regulate and extend proportion universally', printed in the society's Philosophical Transactions in 1776 and 1777. These publications, with his book, The History of Gunnery with a New Method of Deriving the Theory of Projectiles (1776), secured Glenie's election to the Royal Society on 18 March 1779, while he was still in Quebec... In 1794 Glenie published a new booklet on the antecedental calculus. Newton's approach to the calculus had used the notion of limit unclearly, and also drew upon velocity; Glenie wished to avoid all this, so as an alternative he defined the derivative of a function algebraically by using the binomial theorem in order to express the ratio of the increments of two functions as a power series in the incremental variable h, and then blithely deleting terms containing powers of h above the first. A related work was a letter from Glenie to Francis Maseres, containing 'A demonstration of Sir Isaac Newton's binomial theorem'. This, and other papers by Glenie, were published by Maseres in his Scriptores logarithmici (6 vols., 1791–1807).” (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography).
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...[and] Smart, John & Charles Brand. Tables of Interest, Discount, Annuities, &c. First Published in the Year 1724 by John Smart, and now Revised, Enlarged, and Improved by Charles Brand. To Which is Added an Appendix, Containing Some Observations on the General Probability of Life. London: for G. G. J. and J. Robinson [and] T. Longman; T. Cadel; and N Conant, 1789, [1805] [&] 1780.
Quarto (265 x 205 mm). 19th century half calf, buff boards, marbled endpapers, edges of text block speckled blue. Tables and equations. Ownership signature of W. Gordon to each Glenie volume. A Geometrical Investigation lacking the first plate and the full title, and bound in with the half title only. Boards worn and chipped with some loss from the spine, which has been professionally conserved by Bainbridge Conservation, joints cracked but still firm, some offsetting and spotting to contents, particularly the Tables of Interest. Very good condition.
Goin, Peter & Peter Friederici | A New Form of Beauty
£275.00
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First edition, first printing of this significant work on the changing landscapes of the American West, as represented by the Glen Canyon reservoir. Signed by both authors on the title, with an additional inscription by Friederici, “Off into the ‘Great Unknown’!”.
Photographer Peter Goin focuses on human-altered landscapes and is best known for his series on nuclear test sites, published in 1991 as Nuclear Landscapes. His work has been exhibited at more than fifty US and international museums, and he has been awarded two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, as well as nominated for an Emmy for his work in experimental video.
Co-author Peter Friederici is an award-winning journalist and academic specialising in science and the environment. As he writes in the introduction, “This book is about that moment of falling when the solid ground under us gives way to something new. It is about the vanishing of the second-largest artificial lake in America in the face of the new, potent phenomenon we call climate change... Though the book focuses on one reservoir in the Colorado River Basin, it is really about all our known landscapes as we watch them shape-shift into new forms.”
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...Glen Canyon Beyond Climate Change. Photographs by Peter Goin. Essays by Peter Friederici. Tucson, AR: The University of Arizona Press, 2016.
Oblong quarto. Original dark blue cloth, titles to spine in orange. With the dust jacket. Colour illustrations throughout, including 1 folding plate. A fine copy in the jacket.
Gould, Stephen Jay | Dinosaur in a Haystack
£500.00
- First edition, first printing and a beautiful association copy inscribed by the author on the half title, “For Richard & Jude [Judy], All the best, dear old friends, Steve. Stephen Jay Gould”.
Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) was one of the leading evolutionary biologists of the 20th century. His theory of punctuated equilibria challenged the idea that evolution is a slow and constant accumulation of changes, pointing out that instead it often occurs in rapid bursts of speciation followed by periods of stasis. He was a prominent defender of teaching of evolution in schools and a leading critic of the field of sociobiology, which he saw as providing a pseudoscientific basis for discrimination. But he was best known as a popular science writer, penning three hundred essays that were originally published in Natural History Magazine.
Dinosaur in a Haystack collects thirty-four of these essays, most notably the title piece, which discusses how rates of fossil survival influence theories of mass extinction, and “Dinomania”, his review of the film Jurassic Park and astute analysis of the explosion of interest in dinosaurs during the late 20th century. “...dinosaurs were just as big, as fierce, and as extinct forty years ago, but only a few nerdy kids, and even fewer professional palaentologists, gave a damn about them... why now and not before?”
The recipients of this volume were Richard and Judy Milner. Richard and Gould were childhood friends, and Richard eventually became a historian of science and Gould’s editor at Natural History Magazine. “In 1953, two sixth graders in Bayside, Queens, became best friends after they discovered their shared passions for Gilbert & Sullivan operas, dinosaurs, the American Museum of Natural History and Charles Darwin. In their pantheon of heroes, Darwin ranked above even Joe DiMaggio. Their classmates, of course, considered them geeks and bestowed appropriate nicknames: Fossilface and Dino. Fossilface grew up to become an evolutionary biologist better known as Stephen Jay Gould” (Tierney, “Darwin the Comedian”, The New York Times, 9 February, 2009). - ...Reflections in Natural History. New York: Harmony Books, 1995.
Octavo. Original black quarter cloth, black boards, title to spine in red. With the dust jacket. Illustrations within the text. A fine copy in the jacket.
Jackson, Jacquelyne Johnson | Minorities and Aging
£75.00
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First edition, first printing of what at the time was considered the “most complete work on minority aging” (”Women in Duke Health” online exhibition, Duke University Medical Center Archives). Presentation copy inscribed by the author on the inside of the upper wrapper, “To Leslie, So that you will learn more and more each day about the graceful aging you do! Jackie”.
Author Jacquelyne Johnson Jackson (1932-2004) was inspired to study aging as an undergraduate when elderly friends of her family were forced to sell their home and enter public housing to afford medical care. She earned her master’s degree in sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and completed her PhD at Ohio State, then joined the faculties of a number of universities including Duke, Howard, and Jackson State. She held leadership positions in numerous organisations, serving as president of the National Council on Black Aging, president of the Association of Behavorial and Social Scientists, Chair of the Caucus of Black Sociologists, and as a fellow of the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.
“Dr. Jackson was a national expert in aging and a pioneer in the study of aging in Black Americans. Her first important work was her doctoral dissertation, published in 1962 as These Rights They Seek (Washington: Public Affairs Press). Her emphasis was on the unique needs of the older black population and the importance of government involvement in meeting those needs. Her subsequent work, Minorities and Aging (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Co., 1980), echoed this theme though the content was expanded to include other minority groups... Her first priority in the late 1960s was to point to the lack of empirical data on the black elderly that could be used to direct research and policy... To help fill this gap, she began research on older black women, finding that in the aggregate, black women faced an exacerbation of problems seen earlier in life as a result of racism, economics, and isolation. An activist in the Civil Rights movement, Dr. Jackson has addressed race-based affirmative action, the bell curve, and the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas controversy of 1991 as scholarly works” (Duke).
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Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1980.
Perfect bound. Original light blue wrappers printed in black. Tables within the text. Binding lightly rubbed. upper cover creased. Very good condition.
Lebour, Marie V. | The Planktonic Diatoms of the Northern Seas
£250.00
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First edition, first impression. Presentation copy inscribed by the author to her sister on the front free endpaper, “To dear Yvonne, From M. V. L.” (see Lebour’s obituary in the Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, volume 52, p. 778).
Diatoms, a type of phytoplankton, are one of the earth’s keystone species. They are microscopic algae with silica shells that live in both freshwater and marine environments, and produce an amount of oxygen comparable to that of the all terrestrial rainforests combined. They are a primary food source for many other organisms, and accumulations of their shells in sediments record changes in the oceans and climate. Much was learned about phytoplankton during the early twentieth century, and marine biologist Marie Lebour (1876-1971) became one of the leading experts through her work at the Plymouth Marine Biological Laboratory. She “published two classical papers on this topic in 1917. Her subsequent work on taxonomy of plankton species resulted in her first book, Dinoflagellates of the Northern Seas, and in a subsequent volume in 1930 [the present work]. She identified no fewer than twenty-eight new species” (Ogilvie, Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science). Lebour also studied molluscs and their parasites, euphausiid larvae, and the eggs and larvae of fish. She was also a talented draftsperson, and “her detailed and artistic sketches enhanced her publications” (Ogilvie).
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...With Four Plates. London: printed for the Ray Society, sold by Dulau & Co., Ltd., 1930.
Octavo. Original blue cloth elaborately blocked in blind, titles to spine and floral roundel to upper board gilt, yellow coated endpapers, top edge gilt. Ray Society half title with portrait vignette, 4 plates, engravings throughout the text. 16 page Ray Society membership and recent publications lists dated January 1930 at rear. Cloth just a little rubbed at the extremities, spine and edges of the boards tanned, free endpapers partially tanned. An excellent copy.
Leffall, LaSalle D. | No Boundaries. A Cancer Surgeon's Odyssey.
£250.00
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First edition, first printing of the autobiography of one of the world’s leading cancer surgeons. Presentation copy inscribed by the author to columnist William Safire on the title, “To Bill Safire, with best wishes & thanks for all you do for so many at Dana and the New York Times, Lasalle D. Leffall, 9/27/06.”
LaSalle D. Leffall (1930-2019) graduated first in his class from the Howard University School of Medicine and served as a senior fellow in cancer surgery at Memorial Sloane-Kettering, which he chose because “I thought surgery was the most dynamic field” and “Memorial Sloane-Kettering was using some of the most exciting techniques” (Krapp, Notable Black American Scientists, p. 205). In 1962 he joined the faculty of Howard, rising to chair of the department of surgery only eight years later.
Leffall “focused on clinical studies of cancer of the breast, colorectum, head, and neck,” publishing more than 116 journal articles across his career. He became the first Black president of the American Cancer Society in 1978, and “used this national forum to emphasize the problems of cancer in minorities, holding the first conference on cancer among Black Americans in February 1979” (Krapp). Leffalle also served as the first Black president of the American College of Surgeons, was a visiting professor at more than 200 institutions, and received numerous awards. In 1996 Howard University established an endowed chair in surgery in his name.
Bill Safire (1929-2009) began his career as a public relations executive before joining the Nixon campaign in 1960, working as a speechwriter for both Nixon and Agnew. In 1978 he began a nearly thirty year-long career as a New York Times political columnist. Lefall’s mention of “Dana” in the inscription references the Charles A. Dana Foundation, a private charity supporting brain research, of which Safire was chief executive and chairman and Leffalle a member of the board of directors. This copy of No Boundaries was inscribed to Safire at a Dana Foundation event, “Can Immunology Help Win the War on Cancer?” at which Leffall was one of the panellists, and which was followed by a reception and signing to celebrate the book’s publication.
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Washington D. C.: Howard University Press, 2005.
Octavo. Original black boards, titles to spine gilt. With the dust jacket. 8 double-sided plates from photographs. Only the lightest rubbing and a few minor creases to the jacket. A superb, fresh copy.
Lehmer, Derrick | "Machine Performs Difficult Mathematical Calculations"
£100.00
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First edition, staff issue. The present volume collects three years of Carnegie Institution News Service Bulletins (1933-1935), including articles and scientific papers on a variety of subjects researched by Carnegie staff members around the world (this is the staff edition, as opposed to the press and school editions, which do not include the "Notes on Institution Affairs").
The key article in this volume is "Machine Performs Difficult Mathematical Calculations", an account of the "Congruence Machine" (now known as a Lehmer sieve) developed to determine prime numbers by University of California mathematician Derrick Norman Lehmer (1867-1938). Determining which numbers are prime is a key problem in mathematics, and Lehmer made his name in 1914 by completing the series of primes up to 10 million. The first Lehmer sieve was constructed by Lehmer and his son Derrick Henry in 1926, using bicycle chains and metal rods that closed an electrical circuit when a solution to a factorization problem was found. In 1932 they completed a more advanced device utilizing gears and light beams, which is detailed in the present article. Lehmer sieves were an important early type of mechanical calculator, and the basic concept is still used for mathematical sieves in modern software.
With the ownership inscription of renowned seismologist Hugo Benioff, known for the innovative seismographs he developed, as well as his work charting the locations of deep earthquakes in the Pacific seabed.
- ...[in] in Carnegie Institution of Washington News Service Bulletin Staff Edition Volume III, Nos. 1-31. Washington D. C.: Carnegie Institution, 1933-35. Tall quarto. Original green cloth, titles to upper board gilt. Illustrations throughout. Upper corner bumped, a little dampstain to tail of spine slightly affecting contents, minor rubbing at extremities, margins of contents toned. A very good copy.
Lovell, Alfred Charles Bernard, Sir. | Archive of correspondence with astronomer Arthur Beer
£650.00
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An interesting archive of unpublished correspondence between leading radio astronomer Alfred Lovell (1913-2012) and astronomer and science populariser Arthur Beer.
Beer (1900-1980) was born in Richenberg, Bohemia (later Czechoslovakia), and educated in Austria and Germany. He worked as an astronomer at Breslau University, where he studied binary stars, and at the German Maritime Observatory. He also wrote newspaper columns and was responsible for developing one of the first scientific radio programmes, Aus Natur und Technik. Beer escaped from Germany in 1934, assisted by Einstein, who wrote him a public letter of recommendation, and spent the rest of his life in the UK. He worked at the Cambridge Solar Physics Observatory and at the Kew Observatory, and became a member of the Royal Astronomical Society. Beer’s most significant contribution to science was as the founding editor of Vistas in Astronomy, a “voluminous and thorough survey of present-day astronomy” in two volumes, conceived as a Festschrift celebrating the 70th birthday of astrophysicist Frederick J. M. Stratton, under whom he had served in Cambridge. The resulting volumes were so impressive that it was continued first as an annual book and then a quarterly journal.
Beer’s correspondent, the astronomer Alfred Lovell, became interested in radar astronomy while working on British military radar projects during the Second World War and seeing unexplained atmospheric phenomena on radar displays. After the war he set up the first radio telescopes at the University of Manchester, establishing his base at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire. His first major success was in using decommissioned military equipment to determine that the radar echoes he’d seen during the war were caused by meteors. In 1950 he convinced the university to fund a large, custom-designed radar telescope, the Mark I, which was finished just in time to track Sputnik and its launch rocket in 1957. “The technical achievement was acclaimed as a national triumph with defence significance–the rocket was essentially an intercontinental ballistic missile, and no other radar system in the world could detect it. The telescope became a national icon, as well as an emblem of the University of Manchester” (ODNB). He continued his work with telescopes Mark 2 and 3, making observations of a variety of astronomical events and bodies, including US and Soviet lunar probes, and later served as a government administrator for large telescope projects. His work was recognised with the award of the royal medal of the Royal Society in 1960, a knighted the following year, and the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1981.
This file contains correspondence between Beer and Lovell from the initial conception of the Vistas project in early 1952 through the final stages of printing in December, 1954. Lovell opens with a formal request for papers on February 27th, 1952, and Lovell responds on March 7th, “Thank you for your letter... conveying the invitation to contribute to Professor Stratton’s commemoration volume. I shall be very glad to help with this. It is rather difficult to make suggestions about the nature of the contribution until I know what other radio astronomers might be contributing. For example, the nature of any contributions from the Radio School in Cambridge would obviously influence my own contribution great deal. My provisional answer is, therefore, that I will write about radio astronomy, the exact aspect depending upon what other contributions in this field you are expecting to get. Perhaps you will let me know about this in due course.”
On Mach 5th Beer writes that, “The arrangement of the book has made very good progress in the meantime, and you will be pleased to hear that all essential fields appear to be covered by their leading experts. The main sections will be: - Astronomical Vistas, Dynamical Astronomy... Each section has a number of contributors fro various countries; our latest acquisition was the director of the Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories... At present the negotiations with publishers are my main preoccupation. For this purpose I am now preparing a provisional list of contributors and suggested titles... Apart from yourself I have only approached two others from your field, namely Ratcliffe and Ryle... Ryle wanted to communicate with you directly as to the question of how to share the radio-astronomical heavens. If you would care to state which part you would like to take over, I shall be delighted to make the necessary arrangements.” Later, in November, he writes to say that he can include a second article by Lovell and wonders if this might also include a drawing or plan of the proposed Mark I telescope. On December 5th Lovell responds, “Thank you for your letter of November 29th, which we discussed when I met you on Wednesday. Subsequently I was able to talk to Ryle and the position now seems quite clear. I shall do my best to let you have two articles from Jodrell Bank - one on Meteors and the other on Pencil Beam Techniques in radio Astronomy, including the new Radio Telescope.”
Additional correspondence follows, primarily related to the forwarding of the articles and illustrations, proofing, and progress with the publishers, with one notable letter from Lovell reading, “I must say that the method used by Pergamon press is excessively irritating and I have never in the whole of my experience had to waste so much time owing to the fact that the proofs and the diagrams have come in bits and pieces over periods of many months. You must be having an awful job on this!”
The two pieces submitted by Lovell were “Large Radio Telescopes and Their Use in Radio Astronomy” (co-authord by R. Hanbury Brown) and “Radio Echo Studies of Meteors” (with J. G. Davies). Of the 16 typed letters signed by Lovell, one has had the signature clipped out to be reproduced in Vistas, and also included in the file is a short autograph note from Lovell’s collaborator R. Hanbury Brown providing a signature as well. There is also a further typed note by Lovell indicating that he wants to approach Lovell for a piece on tracking Sputnik, presumably for a later issue of Vistas, but there is no related correspondence.
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...during the production of Vistas in Astronomy. Manchester, 1952-1956.
Including 16 typed letters signed (one with the signature clipped out for reproduction in Vistas in Astronomy) and 1 autograph letter signed by Lovell, together with yellow carbons of Beer’s typed letters, bound together with green string with metal caps in Beer’s tan folder with the name Lovell in ink on the cover. Rust stains to the top three documents and the lower document from the metal caps on the binding string, not affecting the Lovell letters. Occasional mild creasing, otherwise the contents fresh and in excellent condition.
Maryańska, Teresa & Halszka Osmólska | Aspects of Hadrosaurian Cranial Anatomy
£50.00
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A rare, inscribed offprint by Halszka Osmólska (1930-2008), “one of the most productive dinosaur paleontologists of her generation” and “a giant” in the field (Dodson, ”Polish Women in the Gobi – In Loving Memory of Halszka Osmólska”, American Paleontologist, Vol. 16, No. 3, Fall 2008). Inscribed by the author on the upper cover using an abbreviated form of her signature, “from HOsm...”. This article reports on the authors’ observations of hadrosaur cranial structures, based on fossils collected from the Upper Cretaceous Nemegt Formation by the Polish-Mongolian Paleontological Expeditions as well as examination of the hadrosaurs in the collections of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Moscow.
Osmólska graduated from the University of Warsaw in 1955, and spent most of her career at the Institute of Paleobiology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, where she served as director between 1984 and 1989 and also as editor of the Institute’s journal, Acta Palaeontologica.
Osmólska was a member of the important Polish-Mongolian expeditions to the Gobi, which were led by Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska between 1965 and 1971 and resulted in the excavation of thirty-five tons of fossils. These excavations “added greatly to our understanding of the diversity of dinosaurs. The material collected in those few years provided material for major portions of the careers of five or six Polish scientists” and “the scientific descriptions of dinosaurs that soon began to flow from the expeditions were almost exclusively written by Polish women, women who up to then had published on Paleozoic invertebrates” (Dodson). Osmólska was one of these specialists, and much of her work on the Mongolian fossils was carried out in partnership with another prominent palaeontologist, Teresa Maryańska (1937-2019), the lead author of this piece.
Osmólska and Maryańska’s first major publication resulting from the Gobi expeditions was the discovery of Deinocheirus mirificus (’unusual horrible hand’), “a fossil collected during the 1965 field season at Altan Ula III in the Nemegt Basin. The find consisted of two nearly complete articulated forelimbs of a theropod of unprecedented size. The forelimbs were 2.4 meters (almost 8 feet) long. The claws on the three-fingered hand measured 323 mm in length (nearly 13 inches). A possible ornithomimosaur, the animal remains enigmatic decades later, pending further discoveries” (Dodson).
Over the course of her career, Osmólska “was responsible for the description of 15 genera of dinosaurs. She was solo author of four of these, and first author of two more. The remarkable team of Maryańska and Osmólska was responsible for naming eight genera. She was honored in the names of a basal archosaur, Osmolskina czatkowicensis (Borsuk-Białynicka & Evans, 2003) and two dinosaurs: the oviraptorosaur Citipati osmolskae (Clark et al., 2001), and most recently (June 2008) Velociraptor osmolskae (Godefroit et al., 2008). She was elected to honorary life membership in the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in 2003” (Dodson). Osmólska was also an editor of the The Dinosauria, one of the most important scholarly reference works on dinosaurs, first published in 1990.
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...[offprint from] Lethaia, Volume 12, pp. 265-273. Oslo: Lethaia, 1979.
10-page offprint, wire-stitched. Illustrations within the text. A little minor creasing. Excellent condition.
Osmólska, Halszka | Nasal Salt Gland in Dinosaurs
£50.00
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A rare, inscribed offprint by Halszka Osmólska (1930-2008), “one of the most productive dinosaur paleontologists of her generation” and “a giant” in the field (Dodson, ”Polish Women in the Gobi – In Loving Memory of Halszka Osmólska”, American Paleontologist, Vol. 16, No. 3, Fall 2008). Inscribed by the author on the upper cover, “with compliments of H. Osmólska". This paper discusses the purpose of nasal glands in dinosaurs, and whether they were used to excrete salt, as in some bird species.
Osmólska graduated from the University of Warsaw in 1955, and spent most of her career at the Institute of Paleobiology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, where she served as director between 1984 and 1989 and also as editor of the Institute’s journal, Acta Palaeontologica.
Osmólska was a member of the important Polish-Mongolian expeditions to the Gobi, which were led by Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska between 1965 and 1971 and resulted in the excavation of thirty-five tons of fossils. These excavations “added greatly to our understanding of the diversity of dinosaurs. The material collected in those few years provided material for major portions of the careers of five or six Polish scientists” and “the scientific descriptions of dinosaurs that soon began to flow from the expeditions were almost exclusively written by Polish women, women who up to then had published on Paleozoic invertebrates” (Dodson). Osmólska was one of these specialists, and much of her work on the Mongolian fossils was carried out in partnership with another prominent palaeontologist, Teresa Maryańska (1937-2019).
Osmólska and Maryańska’s first major publication resulting from the Gobi expeditions was the discovery of Deinocheirus mirificus (’unusual horrible hand’), “a fossil collected during the 1965 field season at Altan Ula III in the Nemegt Basin. The find consisted of two nearly complete articulated forelimbs of a theropod of unprecedented size. The forelimbs were 2.4 meters (almost 8 feet) long. The claws on the three-fingered hand measured 323 mm in length (nearly 13 inches). A possible ornithomimosaur, the animal remains enigmatic decades later, pending further discoveries” (Dodson).
Over the course of her career, Osmólska “was responsible for the description of 15 genera of dinosaurs. She was solo author of four of these, and first author of two more. The remarkable team of Maryańska and Osmólska was responsible for naming eight genera. She was honored in the names of a basal archosaur, Osmolskina czatkowicensis (Borsuk-Białynicka & Evans, 2003) and two dinosaurs: the oviraptorosaur Citipati osmolskae (Clark et al., 2001), and most recently (June 2008) Velociraptor osmolskae (Godefroit et al., 2008). She was elected to honorary life membership in the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in 2003”. Osmólska was also an editor of the The Dinosauria, one of the most important scholarly reference works on dinosaurs, first published in 1990.
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...(Nosowe Gruczoły solne u Dinozaurów). [Offprint from] Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, Volume 24, Number 2, pages 205-215. Warsaw: Zakład Paleobiologii, Polska Akademia Nauk, 1979.
11-page offprint. Original white wrappers printed in black. Skull diagrams within the text. A couple of minor creases and scratches, primarily to the lower wrapper. Excellent condition.
Peckham, George W. & Elizabeth G. On the Instincts and Habits of the Solitary Wasps
£150.00
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First edition, first printing of both titles, the “Additional Observations” being a presentation copy inscribed, “Mr, Claus H. Shirum [?], compliments of the authors”.
Authors Elizabeth and George Peckham were entomologists and archnologists who together pioneered the study of jumping spiders; were early proponents of including behaviour in taxonomical analysis; and performed some of the first studies on sexual selection. Elizabeth was the first female science graduate of Vasser, one of Milwaukee’s first librarians, and a suffragist. George obtained a medical degree but chose to teach high school, and in 1880 the Peckhams introduced the first biological laboratory course in an American High school, also incorporating Darwinian concepts in their pedagogy.
Together the Peckhams described 63 genera and 366 species, and one genus, at least twenty species, and a scientific society are named in their honour. Following George’s death in 1914, Elizabeth continued their scientific work and was awarded a PhD by Cornell in 1914. On the Instincts and Habits of the Solitary Wasps is now considered a scientific classic, for both its style and scholarship. -
[Bound together with] “Additional Observations on the Instincts and Habits of the Solitary Wasps” [in] Bulletin of the Wisconsin Natural History Society, vol. 1, no. 2, April 1900. Madison, WI: the state of Wisconsin, 1898.
Octavo. Contemporary library style binding of black half skiver, black cloth sides, spine gilt in compartments. 14 plates of which 2 are chromolithographs and the 12 are lithographs. Binding rubbed with wear at the corners, spine ends, and hinges, contents toned. A very good copy.
Seibert, Florence B. | Bacteria in Tumors.
£350.00
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Presentation copy of a rare offprint by the biochemist who was the first to produce purified tuberculin for use in studying and treating tuberculosis. Inscribed by the author on the upper wrapper, “Best wishes, Florence B. Seibert”. In this research paper Seibert investigates the presence of bacteria in tumors and the best methods for isolating and identifying them.
Biochemist Florence Seibert (1897-1991) was a productive and highly regarded scientist who worked in a number of areas and received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship. As a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago during the early 1920s she made her first breakthrough, “a method of eliminating bacterial contamination that was known to occur during the creation of solutions meant for vaccinations and injections. Patients could experience sudden fevers or illness during or after an injection or intravenous treatment. Such afflictions, Seibert discovered, were most often caused by bacterial contamination of the distilled water used to make the solutions. She was able to eliminate this contamination using a special apparatus and procedure she created for this purpose. This would be a great boon later not only for administering drugs but also for making blood transfusions safer during surgery” (Lemelson-MIT biography).
But Seibert’s most significant work was on tuberculosis, particularly her improvements to Robert Koch’s skin test for the infection. “Koch’s method was notoriously inaccurate, for the evaporated solution used in the test contained numerous impurities. Even people with a serious case of tuberculosis sometimes failed to get a positive test. Seibert worked for ten years on methods of isolating pure tuberculin by filtration, by using a guncotton membrane of a specific thickness. The result was a creamy white powder which was the purified protein from the tuberculosis bacillus, known as PPD. Never patenting the process (which would have made her rich), she furnished the National Tuberculosis Association with a large quantity of pure tuberculin” (Ogilvie, Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, p. 1173).
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...Reprinted from Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences Series II, Volume 34, No. 6, Pages 504-533. June 1972. New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1972.
Octavo. 32-page offprint, wire-stitched, original white wrappers printed in black. Black and white illustrations from photomicrographs throughout. Orange ink and pencil underlining to two sentences on page 531. Yellow dampstain to the upper wrapper, lighter dampstain affecting the tail of the spine and edges of the wrappers. Minor creasing along the wrapper edges. A very good copy.
Tyson, Neil deGrasse | Death by Black Hole
£150.00
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Sixth printing, published in the same year as the first. Presentation copy inscribed by the author in elaborate calligraphy on the half title, “To: Ravonne, Welcome to the Universe, Neil D. Tyson, May 2007”. Uncommon signed. The present volume is a collection of forty-two essays originally published in Tyson’s “Universe” column in Natural History Magazine between 1995 and 2005.
Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s (1958 - ) interest in astronomy began during childhood, when he viewed the Moon’s surface through a friend’s binoculars. Tyson studied at Harvard, the University of Texas, and Columbia, then joined the faculty of Princeton, where “many students found him a particularly inspiring professor” (Krapp, Notable Black American Scientists, p. 304). His academic research has been focused on cosmology, particularly star births and supernovae, and the structure of the Milky Way and other galaxies.
Throughout his career Tyson has also been focused on sharing astronomy with the general public, leading to him becoming one of the world’s most famous scientists. Since 1996 he has been the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York; written columns in popular magazines; published sixteen books; become a popular figure on Twitter; and hosted several television shows, including the 2004 PBS series Origins and the 2014 reboot of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. His reputation, however, has been affected by rape and sexual harassment allegations made public by fellow graduate student Thchiya Amet El Maat, professor Katelyn Allers, former assistant Ashley Watson, and an anonymous woman in late 2018.
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...and Other Cosmic Quandaries. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007.
Octavo. Original yellow boards, black paper backstrip, titles to spine gilt. With the dust jacket. A little light rubbing at the edges, minor bump to the upper corner of the boards. An excellent copy in the jacket with a little creasing at the head of the spine panel and a minor vertical crease near the top of the spine panel.
Urey, Harold | Archive of correspondence with astronomer Arthur Beer
£1,250.00
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An archive of correspondence between astronomer Arthur Beer and Nobel Prize winning chemist Harold Urey regarding the latter’s contribution to Vistas in Astronomy.
Beer (1900-1980) was born in Richenberg, Bohemia (later Czechoslovakia), and educated in Austria and Germany. He worked as an astronomer at Breslau University, where he studied binary stars, and at the German Maritime Observatory. He also wrote newspaper columns and was responsible for developing one of the first scientific radio programmes, Aus Natur und Technik. Beer escaped from Germany in 1934, assisted by Einstein, who wrote him a public letter of recommendation, and spent the rest of his life in the UK. He worked at the Cambridge Solar Physics Observatory and at the Kew Observatory, and became a member of the Royal Astronomical Society. Beer’s most significant contribution to science was as the founding editor of Vistas in Astronomy, a “voluminous and thorough survey of present-day astronomy” in two volumes, conceived as a Festschrift celebrating the 70th birthday of astrophysicist Frederick J. M. Stratton, under whom he had served in Cambridge. The resulting volumes were so impressive that it was continued first as an annual book and then a quarterly journal.
American chemist Harold Urey (1893-1981) did key work on atomic and molecular structures, particularly hydrogen isotopes. This led him to the discovery of deuterium, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1934. During the Second World War he led the Manhattan Project’s branch at Columbia University, where he applied his knowledge of isotope separation techniques to the problem of isolating of pure uranium 235 on an industrial scale. After the war he worked at the Institute for Nuclear Studies at the University of Chicago. In 1958 Urey moved to the University of California, San Diego, where he did groundbreaking work on the origins of life on Earth, conducting a laboratory simulation of the conditions on the early Earth and proving that they were ideal for the production of cellular building blocks such as amino acids.
The correspondence present here consists of five letters from Urey, mainly on practical issues connected with his contribution to Beer’s book. In the first, on September 10th, 1952, he replies to Beer’s request for submissions, apologising for taking so long to reply as “I have not been able to think of a subkect to write about. I am leaving for Europe on the 14th of September and hope to visit Cambridge about October 15th. If it isn’t too late by that time perhaps we can discuss the question then. In the meantime, I will turn this over in my mind and try to think of something that I might contribute to the book.” On January 8th the following year he writes, “At last the paper for the Stratton volume!... I wish it were a better paper. If you do not wish to publish it I shall not be offended at all. There are quite a few notes and I believe references and notes are more easily read if placed at the bottom of the page. But perhaps your rules are all made long ago.” Later that month Urey sends short note to confirm receipt of the document, and in July he asks that the proofs be mailed to him in Stockholm. The final letter, dated by Beer in pencil as postmarked July 31st, 1953, discusses the terms he has chosen for the index (”I have underlined [in the returned proof, not present here] expressions indicating topics for the index... on the margins I have written additional suggestions” and relates that the illustrations had not arrived yet when he left for the states, but that “I believe the figures can be assumed to be all right”.
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Chicago, 1952-53. Including 3 typed letters signed (one with the signature removed for reproduction in Vistas in Astronomy) and 2 autograph letters signed by Urey. Housed in Beer’s tan paper folder with “Urey” in ink on the cover. Just a little creasing to some pieces. Excellent condition.
Watson, Hewett Cottrell | Topographical Botany
£400.00
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First edition, presentation set inscribed by the author on each title, “Mary Edmonds from the Author, H. C. W. 1873” and “Mary Edmonds from the Author, June 24th 1874”.
Inspired by the work of Alexander von Humboldt, Hewett Cottrell Watson (1804-1881) became Victorian Britain’s leading phytogeographer, and his research contributed to Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species. “Watson's major botanical endeavour was producing several versions of a work first entitled Outlines of the Geographical Distribution of British Plants (1832); it reached its most extensive form as Cybele Britannica, or, British Plants, and their Geographical Relations (4 vols., 1847–59). Volume four contains his most detailed phytogeographical conclusions. After publishing several supplements, he summarized his data in Topographical Botany: being Local and Personal Records towards shewing the Distribution of British Plants (2 vols., 1873–4). He was working on a second edition of it when he died; it was completed by John G. Baker and William W. Newbould (1883)” (ODNB). Watson was also responsible for the foundation of botanical exchange clubs and the publication of the London Catalogue of British Plants, which amassed the contributions of thousands of amateur and professional botanists across Britain.
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...Being Local and Personal Records Towards Shewing the Distribution of British Plants Traced Through the 112 Counties and Vice-Counties of England and Scotland. Thames Ditton: for private distribution, 1873 & 74.
2 volumes, octavo. Original green cloth, titles to spine and upper board gilt, yellow coated endpapers. Map. Corners and edges bumped, dampstains to both lower boards, small area of dampstain to edge of upper board of volume II, occasional light spotting to contents and edges of text block of volume II. A very good set.
Williams, Paige | The Dinosaur Artist
£175.00
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First edition, first printing. Inscribed by the author on the title, “Paige Williams, Tucson Book festival, March 2, 2019”.
This best-selling true-crime tale centers on the remarkable 2013 legal case The United States of America v. One Tyrannosaurus Bataar Skeleton, in which the court decided the fate of a skeleton smuggled to the US from Mongolia by fossil dealer Eric Prokopi. Author Paige Williams, of the New Yorker, explores important questions that have surrounded the practice of palaeontology since its earliest days — who gets credit for, and benefits from, fossil discoveries, and is it ever ethical to sell fossils on the open market? An important contribution to the public’s understanding of the history and ethics of fossil hunting.
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...The Dinosaur Artist. Obsession, Betrayal and the Quest for Earth's Ultimate Trophy. New York: Hachette, 2018.
Octavo. Original white boards, titles to spine in copper. With the dust jacket. Corners very slightly bumped. An excellent copy in the fresh jacket with a little rubbing at the tips.
Wootton, Barbara | In a World I Never Made
£150.00
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Second impression. Presentation copy inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “Ted Willis, with love, B. W., December 1976” and additionally signed by the author on the title.
Wootton (1897-1988) was a prominent, left-leaning London University sociologist and economist who, in addition to her respected academic work, “served on four royal commissions and innumerable committees, was a governor of the BBC, and was a magistrate for forty years” (Ogilvie, Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, p. 1400). “One of her most important academic works was published in 1959 and resulted from five years of research. In this work she reversed commonly accepted ideas about the criminal personality, juvenile delinquency, inherited behaviour trends, and problems of illegitimacy” (Ogilvie, p. 1400).
While the identify of the recipient is not known for sure, it may have been Baron Willis (1914-1992), the playwright, screenwriter, and active supporter of the Labour Party who was made a life peer just a few years after Wootton.
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...Autobiographical Reflections. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1967.
Octavo. Original green cloth, titles to spine gilt on black ground, With the dust jacket. Small black mark to the cloth of the upper board, a few light spots to the edges of the text block. A very good copy in the rubbed, creased, and price-clipped jacket with a few small spots on the lower panel and an over-price sticker on the front flap.
Wright, F. E, F. H., and Helen | The Lunar Surface: Introduction
£450.00
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A rare offprint of a book chapter by the geologist and optical scientist who was considered the foremost authority on the Moon. This copy is inscribed for presentation by his daughter and co-author, science historian Helen Wright, and it comes from the library of Allan R. Sandage, the astronomer who determined the first reasonably accurate values for the Hubble Constant and the age of the universe and was considered “the greatest and most influential observational astronomer of the last half-century” (NY Times obituary, November 17, 2010). Worldcat locates only two other copies of this offprint, at the Huntington and the US Naval Observatory.
Frederick Eugene Wright (1877-1953) spent much of his career at the Carnegie Institute, where he led the Moon Project at the Mount Wilson observatory and “specialized in mineralogy, crystallography and petrology. He developed various optical instruments, chiefly for petrology, and also wrote on the manufacture of optical glass... Wright took a special interest in studying the Moon. He charted all aspects of the orb from its chemical and mineralogical content to the characteristics of its craters and seas and its temperatures. So extensive and detailed was his work that the Moon’s Wright Crater is named after him and two other astronomers” (Optical Society of America biography).
Wright’s daughter Helen began her career as an assistant at Mount Wilson, researching the history of telescopes, and she also worked at the Vassar and U. S. Naval Observatories. Among her publications were biographies of astronomers George Ellery Hale and Maria Mitchell. She has inscribed this copy “Speaking of the Moon! All the best, Helen Wright”. We strongly suspect that it was inscribed for Allan Sandage’s wife, the astronomer Mary Connelly, who had studied at Indiana University and Radcliffe, and was teaching at Mount Holyoke when they met and married.
Allan R. Sandage (1926-2010) completed his physics degree at the University of Illinois in 1948, then became a graduate student at Caltech, where he “learned the nuts and bolts of observing with big telescopes [at the Mount Wilson Observatory] from the founders of modern cosmology, Hubble; Walter Baade, who became his thesis adviser, and Milton Humason, a former mule driver who had become Hubble’s right-hand man” (NY Times). “For his doctoral thesis he studied the stars in the globular cluster Messier 3 and the RR Lyrae variable stars it contains. Refinements in the accuracy of the distances to variable stars became a recurring theme of his work, as these were the first step in determining the ladder of distances through which the true scale of the universe was measured” (Guardian obituary, December 9, 2010).
Sandage’s first major contribution was the 1961 paper, “The Ability of the 200-inch Telescope to Discriminate Between Selected World Models”, which “may well have been ‘the most influential paper ever written in any field even close to cosmology’... It was to set the direction of observational cosmology for 40 years, ruling out the Steady State and the Big Crunch and culminating in the surprise discovery in 1998 that the expansion is not slowing down at all but speeding up” (NY Times). Next, by investigating the motion of old stars in the Milky Way, he and two co-authors showed in 1962 “that that the Milky Way formed from the collapse of a primordial gas cloud probably some 10 billion years ago. That paper still forms the basis of science’s understanding of where the galaxy came from” (NY Times). He continually revised the estimate of Hubble’s constant, the speed at which the universe is expanding. “By 1975 the value, they said, was all the way down to 50, corresponding to an age of as much as 20 billion years, comfortably larger than the ages of galaxies and globular clusters. This allowed them to conclude that the universe was not slowing down enough for gravity to reverse the expansion into a Big Crunch. That was in happy agreement with astronomers who had found that there was not enough matter in the universe to generate the necessary gravity” (NY Times).
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...Reprinted from Middlehurst and Kuiper: The Moon, Meteorites, and Comets (The Solar System, Vol. IV). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1963.
56-page pamphlet, wire-stitched. Original buff wrappers printed in black. 3 double-sided plates, illustrations and charts within the text. Wrappers a little creased and toned, with some small marks and scratches, minor crease affecting the lower corner of the contents. Very good condition
[Chargaff, Erwin] Schrader, Franz | Mitosis. The Movements of Chromosomes in Cell Division
£275.00
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Third printing of this influential work, originally published in 1944. From the library of molecular biologist Erwin Chargaff (1905-2002), with this ownership signature in ink on the front free endpaper.
Chargaff’s work elucidated key concepts about DNA and provided part of the groundwork for Watson and Crick’s discovery of its structure. Chargaff’s rules, as they are now known, state that the quantities of the four nucleotides are always linked - guanine matching that of cytosine and adenine with thiamine, and that the relative amounts of each vary from species to species. These observations strongly hinted that the nucleotides carried the genetic information (rather than the protein components, as had been thought previously), and, most importantly, that DNA could have a double structure - the key to the cell’s ability to both read and replicate it. “Chargaff discussed the results at a tetchy meeting with Watson and Crick in May 1952, and later told Horace Judson, the historian of the discovery of DNA, that ‘they impressed me by their extreme ignorance’” (Guardian obituary). Chargaff’s contributions, along with those of Rosalind Franklin, were ignored by the Nobel Prize committee, leading to his bitterness in later life.
The present text is a significant in our understanding of the physical processes involved in cell division. Franz Schrader (1891-1962) was a Columbia University cytologist who, in 1932, began studying spindles, the structures in cells that form during cell division and pull apart the copied chromosomes. Mitosis “placed what was known of these subjects under searching analysis and offered new directions for research on chromosomal movements” (Cooper, Franz Schrader: A Biographical Memoir, National Academy of Sciences, 1993). An excellent association.
- New York, Morningside: Columbia University Press, 1949. Octavo. Original blue cloth, titles to spine gilt. 1 double-sided plate, illustrations within the text. Very lightly rubbed at the tips, small blue sink spots on the upper edge of the text block. Excellent condition.