Contributions to Solar Physics

Description

1st edition. 676 pages; blue cloth, stamped in gilt and blind on the front cover with title, central circle of a solar deity and his horse-drawn chariot, a border of stars and spectroscopic lines; spine with gilt title and sun surrounded by flares. Brown-coated endpapers, gilt top edge. A near-fine copy of the first edition, illustrated with a (coloured) frontispiece of the spectroscopic corona of 1871, six quality lithographic and colour plates, and 175 woodcuts and steel engravings in the text. The first part deals with "A Popular Account of Inquiries Into the Physical Constitution of the Sun, with special reference to recent spectroscopic researchs". The second part prints the author's communications to the Royal Society of London and the French Academy of Sciences, with notes. Appendices and index at the end. Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer KCB FRS was an English scientist and astronomer. Together with the French scientist Pierre Janssen, he is credited with the discovery of the gas helium. Lockyer is also remembered as the founder and first editor of the influential journal Nature.