WOODWARD, John.

Geographie Physique ou Essay sur l'Histoire Naturelle de la Terre, traduit de l'Anglois... par M. Noguez, ... Avec la résponse aux observations de M. le Docteur Camerarius; plusieurs lettres écrites sur la même matiere; & la distribution méthodique des fossiles, traduit de l'Anglois, ... par le R.P. Niceron, Barnabite. Amsterdam, aux dépens de La Compagnie, 1735. 8vo. 3 works paginated as 1. Title-page in red and black with an engraved publisher's device, 2 divisional titles, 1 engraved folding plate showing a cross-section of the earth, woodcut tailpieces and decorative initials, and bands...

      (xi), (5), 496 pp. Zittel, pp. 29-30; OCLC WorldCat (9 copies); STCN (3 copies); cf. BMC NH supp., p. 1455 (Briasson ed.); Hoover 896-897 (English eds.); Ward 2362 (Briasson ed.); for Woodward: DSB XIV, pp. 500-503.Rare Amsterdam French edition of Woodward's Essay Toward a Natural History of the Earth (1695), his response to Camerarius's critique (first published in Latin in 1714) and his Fossils of All Kinds (1728), translated by Pierre Noguez, Benjamin Holloway and R.P. Niceron respectively. The Paris edition of this translation, published by Briasson in the same year (described as a 4to: xiv, 389, (3) pp.) is more common. The folding plate shows a cross-section of the earth at a scale of about 1:90,000,000, with a four-layer crust surrounding a water core. The scale of the crust is greatly exaggerated, so that the mountains rise to nearly 1000 kilometres. The thickness of the crust nearly coincides, no doubt accidentally, with modern measurements of the thickness of the mantle, so that the liquid core is very nearly correct, though without a solid centre and containing water rather than molten iron or rock. Water sinks or sources run down through all four layers to the water core. John Woodward (1665-1722), collector and palaeontologist, was a famous and influential English representative of the religious school of geologists. In this work, also published in Latin, he describes his collection of fossils, minerals, metals and rock specimens, and promotes his theory to explain the stratification of fossils. He was ahead of his time in arguing that fossils (a word used in this period to denote what we now call fossils as well as organic remains such as bones, shells, etc.) derived from ancient and now extinct plants and animals. In later years, however, his explanation of their origins (that they were antedeluvian plants and animals washed away by the flood and deposited in layers according to their density) hindered the progress of modern scientific theories. One of the most violent opponents of Woodward's theories was Elias Camerarius, professor at Tubingen, whose critique Woodward rebuts in the second work. The final work inc;udes an appendix of letters to Newton and others about the distribution of fossils.In very good condition, with stains in the endpapers. The biinding is worn and chipped, but structurally sound. French edition of Woodward's important and influential publications on fossils, including letters to Camerarius, Newton and others.