The Splash of a Drop.

with a rare thaumatrope

First edition of this rare book on the physics of droplets as elucidated by high-speed photography. A lovely copy in the publisher's cloth depicting a series of splashes.

Remarkably, this copy contains a loosely inserted folded sheet titled 'the thaumatrope for showing the formation and oscillation of drops', intended to be used with the Victorian optical toy that generated animations from still images by spinning them. The sheet states that 'details of mounting' are available on page 149, but as this book only contains 76 pages, it must have originally been part of another publication, possibly Worthington's A Study of Splashes (1908).

Arthur Worthington (1852-1916) was Headmaster at the Royal Naval Engineering College, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and specialist in fluid dynamics. He developed high-speed photographic techniques to study the physics of droplets, and by 1869 'had improved his techniques so that he could capture high quality photographic images of very precise details. He released a metal timing sphere at the same instant as his splash-droplet; triggering an illuminating Leyden jar spark for his open-shuttered camera' (Moore, 'Who Dropped the Ball', Royal Society blog, August 16, 2016).

First edition; 8vo; frontispiece from photographs, engravings and illustrations from photographs within the text, folded sheet loosely inserted (some closed tears and small chips), 11 pages of publisher's ads at rear, contents toned; original blue cloth, titles to spine and upper board in gilt and black, droplet design to upper board in grey, floral-patterned endpapers, spine toned, cloth a little rubbed, particularly at the corners and ends of spine, corners bumped, a very good copy; 76 pp.