GENET, EDMOND CHARLES | Memorial on the Upward Forces of Fluids. Albany: Packard & Van Benthuysen, 1825

GENET, EDMOND CHARLES

Memorial on the Upward Forces of Fluids. Albany: Packard & Van Benthuysen, 1825

8vo (9 x 5 3/4 in.). 5 engraved plates, folding table; foxing. Publisher's lettered boards, rebacked.

Among the earliest American works on aviation

An ambassador of the French Republic to the United States, Genet settled in New York and married Cornelia Clinton, the daughter of New York Governor George Clinton. Despite its title, which suggests hydraulics, the work largely deals with aviation and is regarded as the first printed suggestion of the theory of a heavier-than-air machine taking flight. 

The "first book printed in the United States on practical aeronautics and on the first patent for an aeronautical invention" (Streeter).

Scarce

REFERENCE:

Aeronautical Americana 9; Honeyman 1475; Howes G100; Rink 610; Streeter 3974