MAIRAN, Jean-Jacques d'Ortous de.

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Traité physique et historique de l'aurore boréale. First edition, inscribed by the author on the first blank, "A Monsieur Langlois Ingenieur du Roy et de l'Academie Royale des Sciences, pour les Instrumens de Mathematique, par son tres affectionné, et fidelle ami", and with Mairan's signature. Claude Langlois (d. 1756) was a distinguished engineer and maker of scientific instruments. This is the first exhaustive treatise on the aurora borealis. An astronomer and chronobiologist, Jean-Jacques d'Ortous de Mairan (1678-1771) was secretary of the French Academy of Sciences. "Because of the fears generated by popular observations of northern lights in France in 1716, Mairan was commissioned by the Royal Academy of Sciences to give a rational explanation of the phenomenon. Unlike Edmond Halley, Mairan ascribed a major role to the Sun in the appearance of the aurora, and denied an electric or magnetic origin" (Le Gars, abstract). Although his theories were discredited by François Arago and Alexander von Humboldt, they were important precursors to modern explanations of the lights and the emergence of geophysics.

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