Memoria sobre el uso del termómetro en la navegacion presentada a la Sociedad Filosófica Americana de Filadelfia para promover los conocimientos utiles por Jonathan Williams uno de sus secretarios. Sacada del volumen tercero de sus transacciones filosóficas. Traducida del idioma ingles de order de S. M.
En Madrid: en Casa de la Viuda de D. Joaquin Ibarra, Año de MDCCLXXXXIV [1794]. First Spanish edition. Alain Gerbault’s copy, with his bookplate on the inner front panel. In later leather. Gilt edges. Panels with gilt frame, spine gilt. Marbled endpapers. I. [12 (last blank)] 21 [1 (blank)] p., and one large folding map. In fine condition.
Published in 1792, Memoir on the use of the Thermometer in Navigation is the first appearance of Jonathan Williams’ observations on the temperature variations in the Atlantic which determined the location of the Gulf Stream. His observations were first presented to the American Philosophical Society on November 19, 1790. As noted in his letter of October 20, 1792, to George Washington: “A few copies of the inclosed memoir have been extracted for the purpose of private distribution. If my beleif be well founded, that an attention to the directions it contains, would prevent shipwreck, & consequently save many lives, you will not think this intrusion upon your valuable time an unjustifiable presumption. […]”
By recording water temperature within and outside of the Gulf Stream at different depths, Williams introduces a system of avoiding danger when soundings. The finely engraved map, illustrates the flow of the Gulf Stream, the tracts of five different voyages between Europe and North America, and the water temperature at various points across the Atlantic. The present Spanish edition is augmented by a nine-page preliminary discourse on the Gulf Stream by the Director of the Spanish Marine Academy, Cipriano Vimercati (1730–1808) a Spanish military officer who distinguished himself in the field of mathematics, astronomy.
The Madrid edition was produced in light of the particular Spanish interest in the Gulf Stream, due to the heavy shipping traffic between Spain and her colonies in the Americas. The publisher of this edition, the house of Don Joaquín Ibarra, issued an edition of Cervantes' Don Quijote (1780), which is especially prized by connoisseurs of Spanish literature.
“Jonathan Williams, Jr. (1750–1815), was the grandson of Benjamin Franklin’s half-sister Anne Franklin Harris. As a commercial agent in Nantes, France, during the Revolutionary War, he inspected the arms and other supplies being shipped to the American army. He returned to the United States in 1785 and became a successful merchant in Philadelphia. A member of the American Philosophical Society, he worked with Franklin on his later experiments. Considered an expert in the theory of fortifications, Williams was appointed by Thomas Jefferson as inspector of fortifications and superintendent at the military post at West Point in 1801, and upon the establishment of the U.S. Military Academy there the following year, he became its first superintendent.” (Founders Online)
Provenance: Bookplate of Alain Gerbault (1893–1941), a French Sailor, who made a circumnavigation of the world as a single-handed sailor between 1923 and 1929.
Literature: “To George Washington from Jonathan Williams, 20 October 1792,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-11-02-0135. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series, vol. 11, 16 August 1792 – 15 January 1793, ed. Christine Sternberg Patrick. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2002, pp. 248–249.].
Alain Gerbault’s copy of the first translation of Williams’ Memoir on the Use of the Thermometer in Navigation.
Price: €3,500.00