77/1720 [Astronomy]. Laplace, P.-S. Exposition du système du monde. Paris, Cercle-Social, An IV (1796), 1st ed., 2 vols., 314,(4); 312,(4)p., contemp. hcalf w. 2 mor. letterpieces.

- Sl. foxed and yellowed/ browned; sm. stamp on htitle. Paper over board partly worn off.

= Houzeau/ Lancaster 8940; PMM 252; Bibliotheca Mechanica p.196f; Poggendorff I, p.1375f; DSB XV, p.273ff. "The two-volume work consists of five books. Book I begins with what any attentive observer may see if he will open his eyes to the spectacle of the heavens on a clear night with a view of the whole horizon. Book II (...) sets out the 'real' motions of planets, satellites, and comets and gives the dimensions of the solar system. Book III is a verbal précis of the laws of motion as understood in eighteenth-century rational mechanics, with special reference to astronomy and hydrostatics. In Book IV, Laplace in effect summarized his own work in gravitational mechanics. (...) Only Book V contains material that Laplace had not written up in technical form or presupposed. It gives an overview of the history of astronomy and concludes with the speculation since called the nebular hypothesis and another on the nature of the universe in outer space". (DSB XV, p.343).