Heading: (Science and Technology)
Author: Allen, Zachariah
Title: The Science of Mechanics As Applied to the Present Improvements in the Useful Arts
Place Published: Providence
Publisher:Hutchens & Cory
Date Published: 1829
Description: 364pp.+ errata page. Illustrated with folding frontispiece, folding plate, and 2 incomplete plates (lacking portions at the right margin), plus numerous text engravings. Original full calf leather with red spine label, First Edition.A significant volume in the history of early American science and technology. The first of a half-dozen books written by a Rhode Island textile manufacturer, scientist, lawyer and civic leader, giving an overview of science and inventive technology (what he calls the "useful arts") in the early part of the 19th century.
Prefacing his book with amazing foresight - "the skill of modern artists seems almost to have endued [endowed] wood and iron with a degree of intelligence, in the surprising operations accomplished by various machines" - the 34 year-old inventor and mill owner presents a comprehensive manual of scientific principles as applied to machinery, from elementary electricity to hydrodynamics, and a detailed discussion of the dominant technology of the early 19th century, with special focus on the steam engine, for which he would soon invent and patent an automatic cut-off valve.

Moderately worn; foxing and soiling to text.