AMESBURY, MASS. — Two days and a little less than 1,300 lots later, John McInnis Auctioneers completed its December 13-14 sale of the private alchemy and chemistry library of Dr Arthur Greenberg which, according to the auction catalog, took more than half a century to amass, and consisted of more than 1,500 volumes on the subjects of alchemy and chemistry. Leading both days of the sale was copies of the second Russian edition of Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev’s Oznovy Khimii (The Principles of Chemistry). Published in 1872-3 by the St Peterburg-based Tovarishchestva “Obschchestvannaja Polza,” the two octavo volumes were bound in contemporary brown leather over brown marbled boards, over their original printed wrappers. Both volumes contained old paper labels on their spines and numerous wood engravings. According to the auction catalog, three additional copies of this edition are known, including one at Cornell University, another at a library in Prague and the third belonging to the Gregory S. Girolami and Vera V. Mainz Collection of Rare Books in Science. This copy earned $9,920, with premium, surpassing their $3,75/7,500 estimate. Additional highlights from this auction will be featured in an upcoming issue.