BEER, Wilhelm and Johann Heinrich MÄDLER. ~ Fragments sur les corps celestes du système solaire... avec les planches. Paris: Bachelier, 1840.
Large 4to (280 × 218 mm), pp. [4], xii, 216, plus 7 lithograph plates (6 being 190 × 28 mm) the other being 220 × 280 mm). Some light browning throughout, with some spotting to the preliminaries, the larger plate browned with small waterstain to upper left corner, all plates slightly spotted. Quarter cloth, circa 1900. Early ownership inscription to head to title ‘A. Le Maire II’. A good copy.
First edition of this observational survey of the solar system, including the earliest accurate maps of the surface of Mars, establishing the discipline of aerography (a derivation form ‘Ares’ the Greek god of Mars). Wilhelm Beer and Johan Mädler made systematic telescopic observations of Mars from 1830, the year in which the planet passed closest to earth. Their goal was to refine Herschel’s calculations of its period of rotation — just over 24 hours — which had prompted speculation about the red planet’s similarities to our own. In doing so they made a close survey of spots and other markings, trying to understand those which might give clues to the composition of the Martian surface and those which were atmospheric and created the drawings on which the Mars plates in the Fragments were prepared. They were accurate enough to plainly ‘distinguish the two most notable features of Mars Syrtis Major (looking like India), and Lacus Solis (looking like a large eye)’ (Ashworth, Linda Hall website https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/scientist-of-the-day/wilhelm-beer/). The multiple small diagrams of Mars on 6 plates appear for the first time, while the larger double-hemisphere plate had previously appeared in a journal article in Astronomische Nachrichten of 1838. The book was published in German in 1841 as Beiträge zur physischen Kenntniss der himmlischen Körper im Sonnensysteme. Both authors contributions are commemorated with Martian craters named after them.
Houzeau and Lancaster 1332.