Traite Elementaire des Quaternions . . . Traduit sur la Seconde Edition Anglaise avec Additions de l'Auteur et Notes de Traducteur par Gustave Plarr.

Paris:: Gauthier-Villars, 1882, 1884., 1882. Two volumes. 8vo. xxvi, 306; x, 312 pp. Figs. Quarter maroon calf, gilt spines, raised bands, maroon cloth boards; spine head gently repaired with kozo. Small early rubber stamps (1 on each title) of L'abbe Damase Guinot. Pencil ownership signatures of J.F. Gaupuis-Montagu[!?]. Very good. First edition in French of this important mathematical work on quaternions. Quaternions were introduced by Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton in 1843 and have been used in mechanics to describe three-dimensional space. His earliest work dealt mainly with mathematical subjects, and especially with quaternions, of which (truncated) he was the leading exponent after their originator, William Rowan Hamilton. He was the author of two text-books on them - one an Elementary Treatise on Quaternions (1867), written with the advice of Hamilton, though not published till after his death, and the other an Introduction to Quaternions (1873), in which he was aided by Philip Kelland (1808–1879). Kelland was one of his teachers and colleagues at the University of Edinburgh. [Wikip.]. "Since 1870, Dr. Plarr's time was almost exclusively devoted to the study of Quaternions. In 1882-84 his - French translation of Prof. Tait's Treatise was published by Gauthier-Villars. Several papers by him, on abstruse points connected with the Quaternion method, were communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh." [Nature, 45, p.419, 03 March 1892]. PROVENANCE: L'abbe Damase Guinot, was a former choir-master at Lucon Cathedral who wrote, Observations relatives a la bonne execution du chant gregorien,1881. [2] The pencil signature is difficult to read, but appears to be J.F. Gaupuis-Montagu [or Montaigne]? Need more information to resolve. (Inventory #: S8418)