Barometers Realm

An exceptionally important facsimile edition of the surviving research notebook of Eugène Bourdon, inventor of the metallic pressure gauge based on the curved elastic tube that still bears his name.

The volume reproduces material created by Bourdon between 1837 and 1859, a period encompassing the development of his earliest pressure-measuring experiments and the invention and patenting of the Bourdon metallic manometer in 1849. Rather than presenting a later theoretical account, the book preserves the development of Bourdon’s ideas in the form in which he originally recorded them: handwritten observations, dated experiments, mechanical sketches and carefully coloured construction drawings.

Among the reproduced pages is Bourdon’s 1837 first experimental manometer for indicating steam pressure on a graduated dial. The accompanying note explains that the instrument was also intended to act as a regulator of steam output. This early design predates the familiar Bourdon-tube pressure gauge and provides valuable evidence of the inventor’s gradual search for a practical method of translating fluid pressure into mechanical indication.

Especially significant are the drawings dated April 1849, the year in which Bourdon patented his metallic manometer. They show an oval-cased instrument in several views and clearly illustrate the flattened curved metallic tube whose deformation under pressure directly moves the indicating mechanism. Another 1849 drawing depicts a manometer for a locomotive, demonstrating the rapid adaptation of Bourdon’s principle to steam-engine and railway applications.

The publication itself was conceived as a faithful facsimile rather than a modern redrawing. The colophon explicitly states that the publishers sought to preserve the handwriting, colours, binding — and perhaps even the errors — of the original notebook. The pages were reproduced in phototype and then individually hand-coloured, giving the volume the appearance of a nineteenth-century working manuscript rather than a conventional printed technical book.

The edition was restricted to 1,020 numbered copies. Twenty copies were produced on special Rives paper, one hundred on vélin pur fil Marais, and nine hundred on standard vellum. As Copy No. 40, the present volume belongs to the second and considerably scarcer group.

Its provenance adds further interest. The book comes from the family of Roger Henrard, son of Léon Henrard, who succeeded Jules Richard. It therefore originates from a family directly connected with the French precision-instrument industry.

For the collection, the volume is especially significant because it documents one of the fundamental developments in nineteenth-century pressure measurement: the transition from liquid-column instruments to robust metallic pressure gauges. Bourdon’s curved elastic tube became one of the most successful pressure-sensing principles ever devised and was subsequently applied not only to industrial manometers but also to barometric and other pressure-measuring instruments.

Only selected representative pages are presented online, including the title and limitation pages and several of Bourdon’s key drawings from 1837 and 1849, while the complete volume remains preserved as part of the collection.