Genet jean

1825 · 1528 — Albany: Packard & Van Benthuysen 1825. About very good. 112pp. plus five engraved plates and folding table. Original printed boards sympathetically rebacked. Light dampstaining and wear to boards. Some foxing and toning internally heavier to initial leaves. A rare and pioneering if evidently fanciful work on air travel by Edmund Charles Genet the infamous ambassador of the French Republic to the United States who from his position in America sought to outfit privateering expeditions against British and Spanish interests in the Caribbean during the 1790s. Following the failure of his schemes and removal from his office at the request of President Washington Genet managed to remain in the United States:<br/><br/>"In February 1794 the new minister Joseph Fauchet arrived with a warrant for Genet's arrest. Had the ex-minister returned to France the Jacobins now in power might have executed him. Granted asylum in the United States he married Cornelia Clinton daughter of New York governor George Clinton 1739-1812 settled near Albany and eventually became a U.S. citizen. He avoided politics and busied himself with publishing unworkable schemes for powered balloons and for using hydraulic power to haul barges over hills" - ANB.<br/><br/>Despite its title which suggests hydraulics the present 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 marvelous plates contain detailed diagrams and illustrations of Genet's proposed horse-powered aerostatic airship and the text discusses his designs and his theoretical proofs for the possibility of mechanical flight in exuberant detail. <br/><br/>"This pamphlet by the former Ambassador from France contains a proposal for a large airship and other suggestions for the use of the aerostatic principle. The project attracted much attention. but never materialized" - Aeronautic Americana. "Extremely rare and important the first book printed in the United States on practical aeronautics and on the first patent for an aeronautical invention" - Streeter.<br/> ANB online. Aeronautical Americana 9. Honeyman Sale 1475. Howes G100 "b." Rink 610. Streeter Sale 3974. Packard & Van Benthuysen unknown books