Transactions of the American Philosophical Society Held at Philadelphia, for Promoting Useful Knowledge. Benjamin Franklin, President. Volume I, Pts 1 and 2, 2nd edition. Philadelphia, Aitken & Son, 1789. Quarto, pp. xxiv, 407, 6 folded plates. In contemporary calf and marbled boards with gilt titles, browning and foxing to some text signatures and plates and offset of plate images. Still very good.

The 1st edition of volume 1 was published between 1769 and 1771 with the noted American scientist and politician Benjamin Franklin being the founder and President of the Society. Part one of the above is devoted to the 1769 Transit of Venus over the sun and contains the observations and writings of David Rittenhouse and others on the subject. With the exception of Benjamin Franklin; David Rittenhouse (1732-1796) was the most celebrated scientist in the American Colonies and later the New Republic. He was the second citizen of the United States to become a Fellow of the Royal Society of London's foreign list and one of the founding members of Benjamin Franklin's American Philosophical Socity. Rittenhouse assisted Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon in surveying the "mason and Dixon Line" between Pennsylvania and Maryland. With the support of Thomas Penn and Lord Baltimore; he measured the first accurate degree of latitude in Pennsylvania, made pioneering astronomical observations, uncluding an eclipse of the moon, and the transit of Venus. In 1771 he built the finest mechanical model of the solar system produced in the colonies and the following year built the finest observatory constructed in the colonies. It first was built and installed in Philadelphia and used for observing the transit of Venus.