The beginnings of a chemical climatology
SMITH, Robert Angus. On the Air of Towns. [London, The Chemical Society 1859].
8vo. Recent blue wrapper with label to front; pp. 40; very good. Provenance: presentation copy inscribed to p. 1: "To Arthur Ransome Esq with the kind regards of R. Angus Smith". This is unlikely to be the celebrated children's author, as he was not born until 1884, the year that Smith died.
First separate edition, offprint from the Quarterly Journal of the Chemical Society. R.A. Smith (1817-1884) discovered acid rain in 1852, and his main work was the 1872 book Air and Rain: The Beginnings of a Chemical Climatology. This paper is one of many that he produced while gathering his data on the increasingly desperate problem of urban air pollution.
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