LAMY, Conjectures physiques sur des colonnes de nüe, 1689

First edition.
Illustrated with a folding plate and four figures in the text, two of which are full-page.
Lamy studies here two "lightning strikes" that had left their mark, the first on April 26, 1676 in Soissons had left an astonishing frieze (which is reproduced on the folding plate) in the dormitory of an Abbey. The second in Lagny on July 18, 1689, where lightning had struck the altar of the Church of Saint-Sauveur and imprinted the canon of the mass on its tablecloth.
Camille Flammarion devotes an entire chapter in his book "Les Caprices de la foudre" to Lamy's observations, and tells us: "A monk, Father Lamy, of the Congregation of Saint-Maur, published in 1696 [Editor's note: 2nd ed.] an excellent pamphlet, dictated by the clearest common sense, on the curious effects of lightning, which were then the subject of the most superstitious commentaries. Voltaire could not have reasoned better.".