Milestones of Science Books

FAUTH, Philipp.

Astronomische Beobachtungen und Resultate aus den Jahren 1893 und 1894. Neue Beiträge zur Begründung einer modernen Selenographie und Selenologie. Gesammelt aus seiner Privatsternwarte zu Kaiserslautern... Mit einem Atlas von 25 Topographischen Spezialkarten des Mondes.

Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1895.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Item #002608

20 b&w collotype sheets with 25 topographical charts in original publisher's folder with printed boards (330 x 250 mm), one explanatory sheet pasted onto inner front board. Additional text volume, stapled as issued and with publisher's printed wrappers (287 x 226 mm). x, 66 pp. Publisher's advert sheet announcing this work loosely inserted. Printed paper-slip of (new) publisher pasted over original imprint on both, upper board of folder and front cover of text volume. Boards of folder rubbed and browned in margins, cloth of spine cracked at upper hinge and somewhat chipped, some wear to extremities, one folder flap detached; little marginal browning to wrappers of text volume, text and charts clean and little age-toned only. Still a fine and unsophisticated copy. ----

Ashworth, The face of the moon, Linda Hall 33. - EXCEPTIONALLY RARE FIRST EDITION of Fauth's first published lunar atlas. Originally published in Kaiserslautern by Gotthold, the print run was taken over by Ambrosius Barth in Leipzig in the same year. Without plate XII which has never been issued. The advert sheet included states a sales price of 15.00 Mark for this work.
"Fauth managed to alienate most of the selenographic community during his lifetime, with his intemperate criticism of other observers and his espousal of the theory that the moon was solidly covered with ice. But there is no denying that Fauth was a gifted observer, perhaps the last of the great selenographers to map the moon by hand and eye. Fauth was a schoolteacher for most of his life and maintained an observatory near Kaiserslautern. This is his first publication, containing 25 drawings of selected lunar features on 20 sheets, at a scale of 1:1 million. Fauth was one of the most skilled of all selenographers at using the hachure shading technique, which indicates relief by short lines in the direction of maximum slope. Curiously, he abandoned this technique later in his career in favor of contour lines." (Ashworth 33). "The depth of understanding of the nature of lunar topography demonstrated by Fauth was superior to that possessed by the majority of his contemporaries. The morphology revealed by his methodical measurements of the depth-to-diameter ratios of hundreds of lunar craters and the slopes of their exterior and interior walls led him to reject the prevailing volcanic theories of the origin of lunar craters." (Thomas A. Dobbins, In: Bibliographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, Springer, 2007, p.360). - Visit our website to see more images!

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