Author: LA CHAMBRE (Marin Cureau de ):
Title: Discours sur les Causes du Desbordement du Nil Par Monsieur De la Chambre.
Description: A Paris, Chez Jacques Dallin..., 1665. 12mo, 157 x 90 mms., pp. [xl], 288, 291 - 360, with separate drop-title for "Discours de la Natue Divine selon La Philsophie Platonique," register and pagination continuous, engraved frontispiece, folding engraved map between pages 296 and 297, contemporary calf, spine ornately gilt in compartment, dark red leather label; front joint cracked, spine chipped at top and base and bottom panel faulty, ex-library with withdraw stamp on verso of title-page, tiny ms. purchase note at top of front paste-down end-paper, and, in the same hand, "B drandon" on the top margin of the front free end-paper. The French physician and philosopher Marin Cureau de la Chambre (1594 – 1669) was said to be able to judge human character from a person's physical appearance, an ability that Louis XIV admired. This skill is probably what led to his major work, five volumes on physiognamy, L'art de connaître les hommes par la physionomie. The present volume argues that the cause of the overflowing of the nile is down to saltpetre in the water. Even some of his contemporaries thought that he was wrong, but this is an early instance of a historical approach to climate and climate change.

Keywords: science Egypt prose


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