FORBES, James David (1809–1868) (his copy), [BREWSTER, David (1781–1868)]

‘Hydrodynamics’ [extract from:] Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th edition

(Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1842)

4to; pp. [1]–110

An important association copy of Brewster’s Encyclopaedia Britannica entry on hydrodynamics. Inscribed to ‘Professor [James David] Forbes’ / from A Thomson / O[ld] Fishmarket’. Forbes had been encouraged to pursue a career in science by the elder scientist.

Thomson is almost certainly the Edinburgh bookseller Abram Thomson, active in Old Fishmarket Close from around 1807. Forbes was a leading Scottish glaciologist and physicist, and was Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh from 1833–1860.

In 1840 Forbes met the Swiss-American naturalist Louis Agassiz at the Glasgow meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and as a result became interested in the question of glacial motion. This in turn led him to a detailed study of hydrodynamics, most likely the context in which the present work was acquired.

Good condition: bound in green quarter leather with plain boards; internally very good, with occasional marginalia and corrections, presumably by Forbes.