FAUJAS DE SAINT-FOND, Barthelemy

Recherches sur les Volcans éteints du Vivarais et du Velay; avec un Discours sur les Volcans brûlans, des Mémoires analytiques sur les Schorls, la Zéolite, le Basalte, la Pouzzolane, les Laves & les différentes Substa

      20 engraved plates (including one double-page) & several engraved vignettes (including one on the title). 2 p.l., xviii, [2], 460, [4] pp. Large folio, cont. mottled calf, triple gilt fillet round sides, spine richly gilt, green morocco lettering piece on spine. Grenoble: Cuchet, 1778.pFirst edition of one of the most famous and attractive of all geological books in which the author "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."!D.S.B., IV, p. 548. Faujas compared mineralogically the rocks present in Vivarais and Velay with the ejected material of active volcanoes. "The author's descriptions and illustrations of the extinct volcanoes are excellent, and have scarcely been surpassed in later publications."!Zittel, p. 46. Faujas (1741-1819), professor of geology at the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, also travelled to England and Scotland where he made important geological observations. A really nice and attractive copy of the large folio issue (the quarto issue published at the same time is more common). The final four pages contain the list of subscribers. Our copy is superior to the Freilich copy which made $10,800. En Francais dans le Texte 169. Hoover 294.. First Edition. Hard cover.