Mark Catesby begins part publication in London of The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, containing the figures of birds, beasts, fishes, serpents, insects, and plants ... together with their descriptions in English and French, the first published account of the
flora and
fauna of North America, and the first work of
natural history to use
folio-size coloured plates.[2]
Pierre Bouguer publishes Essai d'optique sur la gradation de la lumière, defining the quantity of light lost by passing through a given extent of the
Earth's atmosphere, thus making some of the earliest measurements in
photometry and becoming the first known discoverer of what is now known as the
Beer–Lambert law.[5]
Technology
Stephen Switzer publishes An Introduction to a General System of Hydrostaticks and Hydraulicks in London, a 2-volume general treatise on
hydraulics.
Walter Churchman of
Bristol (England) patents the first mechanical
cocoa bean grinder.[6]