xii, 128, (2) pp., text figs, 8vo, orig. cloth-backed boards, paper title-label to spine, endpapers browned, pages uncut. Ex-lib. Quekett Microscopical Club: Small ink stamps to endpaper, title and final page only, small circular shelf label to spine. Good. Rendered into English by Silvanus P. Thompson. First English edition. Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695) was a Dutch physicist, mathematician, astronomer and inventor. He had many scientific interests but is especially noted for his wave theory of light, which he first communicated in 1678 to the Paris Académie des Sciences and was published in 1690 in his major work, 'Traité de la lumière' (Treatise on light). Some two hundred years later the first English translation of this highly influential work in the history of optics was made by Silvanus Thompson, who admired Huygens stating ‘none can read his investigation of the phenomena found in Iceland spar without marvelling at his insight and sagacity’. [36675]