48 - [BOURGET, Louis]. Treatise on Petrifications.

[BOURGET, Louis]. Treatise on Petrifications. First edition of one of the very first books on paleontology written in French. Paris: Briasson, 1742. 2 parts in 1 quarto volume, full brown grained calfskin, ribbed spine, panels decorated with gilt fillets and fleurons, dark brown leather title label, gilt roulette on the edges, red-speckled edges. XVI–163 and 91 pp., 60 folding plates. Gilding on the binding has faded; slight rubbing; scattered foxing; and a few leaves are slightly browned with faint water stains along the upper margin of the second part. The paper of plates XLVII and XLVIII is slightly browned; plate XII is mounted after plate LVI. First edition of this treatise, considered one of the very first books on paleontology in the French language, published anonymously and illustrated with 4,412 copperplate engravings distributed across 60 fold-out plates. Written primarily by the Neuchâtel naturalist Louis Bourguet (1678–1742), the manuscript was completed, organized, and published by his close collaborator Pierre Cartier. The treatise is divided into two parts: the first opens with a discussion of the origin of stones and then, in the form of scientific correspondence, examines the animal or plant origin of fossils. The second part presents an encyclopedic classification: a distinction between minerals and fossils, a directory of known deposits, a bibliography, and an explanation of the 60 plates classified according to the morphological similarities of the specimens. The remarkable plate LX notably reproduces the famous “Homo diluvii testis” fossil, which J. J. Scheuchzer mistakenly identified in 1726 as a man who witnessed the biblical Flood, and which Cuvier later identified as a giant salamander. [Barbier IV, 585] A fine copy in a sturdy contemporary binding.