Transactions of the American Philosophical Society Held at Philadelphia, for Promoting Useful Knowledge. David Rittenhouse, President. Volume III. 1st edition. Philadelphia Printed and Sold by Robert Aitken 1793. Quarto. pp. xl, 368, with five fold-out plates.
In contemporary calf and marbled boards with gilt titles, browning and foxing to some text signatures and plates and offset of plate images.
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Volume 3 contains the first published appearance of Benjamin Franklin's papers on conjectures concerning the formation of the Earth in a letter to Abbe Sculavie, his new and curious theory of light and heat in a letter to David Rittenhouse, his description of the process to be observed in making large sheets of paper in the Chinese manner, his queries and conjectures relative to magnetism and the theory of the earth in a letter to Mr. Bodoin. The volume also contains a major study by Jonathan Williams who accompanied Franklin on a voyage to Europe and made temperature recordings of the ocean confirming Franklin's observations on the presence of a warm current of water called the Gulf Stream. Numerous other important works by Rittenhouse, Waring, Hopkins, et. al.