8vo. [40], 252pp. With an engraved portrait frontispiece (depicting Queen Anne), a further 12 engraved plates (some folding), two folding table (included in pagination), and four leaves of publisher's advertisements bound following the tables of contents. Contemporary panelled calf, tooled in gilt and blind, morocco lettering-piece. Rubbed, lightly marked. Recent armorial bookplate of sportsman and explorer Hugh Cecil Lowther, fifth Earl of Lonsdale (1857-1944) to FEP

The first edition of the second (and final) published work of engineer John Barker; an early practical treatise on the art of military fortification. The work contains detailed instructions of methods for building foundations on various types of ground, and a section of selecting materials. The book is an exception to many contemporary English publications on the subject, certainly prior to 1750, which could teach one the theory, but would have been of little use in the field. Indeed, in his prefatory remarks, the author states: 'The Imperfection of those Treatises of Fortification, which have been either Wrote, or Translated in our Language, made me often wish, that some able Pen would be so kind, as to favour his Country with such a Treatise thereof, as might sufficiently unfold the Principles of that Art. But none having been so kind as to do it, the Fifteen Months, in which I was last a Prisoner in France, having made for my Diversion, made a Collection of several Matters relating to Fortification, and several Curious Experiments, which one of the College of Jesuits in Renne, the Place of my Confinement, was pleased to favour me with; most of which, I judg'd, might one time or other be serviceable in the Art of War.'

ESTC records copies at four locations in the British Isles (BL, Durham, Edinburgh, and Oxford), and a further three in North America (College of William and Mary, McGill and NYPL).