Practical Treatise on the Teeth of Wheels: with the Theory and the Use of Robinson's Odeontograph.

ROBINSON, S[tillman] W[illiams]. Practical Treatise on the Teeth of Wheels with the Theory and the Use of Robinson's Odontograph. Illustrated. 12mo, original printed boards (rubbed; cudely rebacked with cloth), folding frontispiece (leading blank edge a little ragged), pp. 126, [14] ads + 3 plates (1 folding). New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1876.

First Edition. A famous engineer/inventor's work on correct gearing. This copy belonged to a great American mechanical engineer, Ambrose Swasey (1846-1937) as a young man while employed by Pratt & Whitney Co., East Hartford, Connecticut. For Swasey see the DAB. With his partner, Worcester R. Warner, he founded Warner & Swasey, manufacturer of machine tools, instruments and special machinery, in Cleveland, Ohio. He built the Lick and Yerkes observatories. Swasey's ownership signature is on front cover, and he has signed and dated the book the year of publication inside on the first ad leaf: "A. Swasey Hartford Conn. 1876." On title is Swasey's later pencil note: "This little book I got from Prof. S. W. Robinson when I was with the Pratt and Whitney Co. Prof. Robinson had his Odontograph on exhibition at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876 and I met him there several times." Swasey began his mechanical engineering career at Pratt & Whitney in 1869. By 1878 the 32 year-old was head of the gear-cutting department at the company. One of Robinson's outstanding text-books which the DAB says "is still in wide circulation." "The present little volume, reprinted from the page of Van Nostrand's Magazine, has resulted from an effort to bring before the mechanical public improved facilities for obtaining correct gearing. Correct gear teeth are essential for the economic transmission of power…"-Preface. We assume the crude rebacking was done by Swasey at some point as the book came to us when we bought his personal library. With Swasey's large ex-libris depicting the "36 inch Lick Telescope," the observatory having been built by him.