Atticus Rare Books

Guericke’s Sulphur Globe, Annals of Science, [Offprint], Vol. 6, No. 3, February 1950, pp. 293-305

Heathcote, N. H. de V.

1950. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION OFFPRINT, PRESENTATION COPY, OF A “MASTERLY ACCOUNT” OF GUERICKE’S SULPHUR GLOBE (Cohen, Guericke and Dufay, 207). Though some still argue that Guericke’s sulphur globe was the first electrical machine, Heathcote makes clear that Guericke’s experiments with the globe had no electrical significance for Guericke himself. Collectors prize offprints because they are separately printed by journals and frequently issued in small quantities intended only for the author’s use and distribution to colleagues.

At the head of the first page appears: “Dr. J. W. Abrams, With the Author’s Compliments” (see photo). J. W. Abrams was an astrophysicist, an operational researcher, a scientific adviser, and an historian of Science. Abrams was situated at the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Powers in Europe during World War II and from there, conducted extensive military and scientific study.

The generation process for the first electrostatic generators was friction and they were referred to as friction machines. “A primitive form of friction machine was invented around 1663 by Otto von Guericke, using a sulphur globe that could be rotated and rubbed by hand. It may not actually have been rotated during use and was not intended to produce electricity (rather cosmic virtues), but inspired many later machines that used rotating globes (Wikipedia).

“Dr. N. H. de V. Heathcote has published a masterly account of ‘Guericke’s Sulphur Globe’ in which he [takes issue with] the historical account of Guericke as an ‘electrician’” (Cohen, 207). Many modern histories of electricity stated (and sometimes still do — in error) that Guericke ‘generated electricity by holding his hands against a rotating sphere of sulphur’ or devised ‘a machine for producing electrical charges’.

Dr. Heathcote argues clear that the sulphur globe was not devised as an electrical machine nor were the experiments made by Guericke ‘investigations into the properties of electricity’” Guericke, in other words, did not see his discovery as electrical. In announcing his invention in Experiments Nova in 1672, Guericke noted: “We cannot concede that the attraction occurs by the intervention of the air, because we can see by experiment that the sulphur globe, when excited by friction, can also exercise its virtue [conservativa] through a linen thread one ell or more in length” (Guericke, Exp. nova, 1672).

Heathcote noted that ‘Guericke scattered his observations on the experiments with the sulphur globe throughout the body of his book, in all probability his name would never have mentioned in connexion with electricity’. The concentration of these experiments and observations ‘in a single chapter led Priestley and others, who realized that the experiments were entirely electrical in nature, to assume that they had the same significance for Guericke’”, concludes Dr. Heathcote (Cohen,207). Item #876

CONDITION & DETAILS: Annals of Science Offprint. 4to. 9.75 x 7.25 inches. Presentation copy (see photo). Original stapled wraps, pp. 293-305. Slight toning on front page, otherwise bright and very clean. Very good condition.

Price: $85.00