Recherches sur les volcans éteints
First edition of the famous work on volcanoes by Faujas de Saint Fond, adorned with 20 large engraved plates.
A very fine copy from one of the subscribers, in contemporary binding.
In-folio of (2) leaves, XVIII pp. of preface, (1) leaf, 460 pp., (2) leaves, mottled calf, spine with raised bands decorated with double gilt fillet in each compartment, double gilt fillet on the edges, red edges. Contemporary binding.
415 x 277 mm.
Faujas de Saint-Fond, Barthélémy. Research on the extinct volcanoes of Vivarais and Velay; with a discourse on active volcanoes, analytical memoirs on slags, zeolite, basalt, pozzolana, lavas, and the different substances found within them.
Grenoble, J. Cuchet and Paris, Nyon, Née and Maquelier, 1778.
First edition of the most important work by Faujas de Saint-Fond (1741-1819), who is considered one of the founding fathers of geology and volcanology.
A naturalist close to Buffon, he was also the first professor of geology appointed in France. His meticulous descriptions of crater volcanoes remain authoritative to this day.
This beautiful edition is adorned in the first issue with 20 large full-page copper engravings by Fessard (one by Magne) after the drawings of Veyrenc and Arnaud-Éloi Gautier d’Agoty.
They depict remarkable volcanoes and geological sites.
A fine vignette on the title page, engraved and drawn by Savart, depicts Etna.
The illustrations also include an attractive engraved headpiece and numerous historiated initials.
“Faujas had been exploring the hilly districts of Vivarais and Velay in the east-central France and found that the basalt there was also volcanic […] He embodied them in 1778 in a great folio work on the ancient volcanoes of Vivarais and Velay. The work established once and for all that basalt, a rock important scientifically because of its distinctive characteristics, its widespread occurrence, and the manner of its association with other kinds of rocks, was the product of volcanic action” (DSB 4:548).
“Barthélemy Faujas belongs to that great generation born between 1740 and 1750 who made geology a science. What the Genevan Horace-Bénédict de Saussure did in the Alps, what the Russian Peter Simon Pallas did from the Caucasus to the Urals, what his compatriot and friend Déodat de Dolomieu did in Italy and Sicily, Faujas de Saint-Fond did in Auvergne: he roamed the mountains, explored the caverns, examined the rocks, collected specimens—in short, he observed with intelligence, perseverance, and humility, and then published the account of his observations. He was the first to conduct a systematic survey in this province, the first to assemble a rich collection of different varieties of basalt, the first to publish the results of his investigations in a folio volume, magnificently illustrated with twenty large plates engraved by the best artists of the time, after the drawings of his collaborators Veyrenc and Arnaud-Eloi Gautier-Dagoty” (En Francais dans le texte).
A very fine copy, large-margined, in the deluxe in-folio edition, preserved in its very attractive period binding.
Provenance: From the library of “Gillet, Écuyer 1778”, whose name appears in the list of subscribers, with engraved bookplate.
