Harmonie hydro-végétale et météorologique, ou Recherches sur les moyens de recréer avec nos forêts la force des températures et la régularité des saisons, par des plantations raisonnées. Cet ouvrage, médité pour le bonheur des campagnes, embrasse les corrélations existantes entre les montagnes, les forêts et les météores ; les températures et les saisons ; la régénération des sources, la repopulation des ruisseaux et des fleuves ; l'assainissement et la culture des marais ; la fructification des grandes routes et des voies pastorales ; avec quelques vues morales sur les honneurs à rendre dans nos cérémonies funéraires à la nature humaine. Dédié au Premier Consul de la République française[Hydro-Vegetal and Meteorological Harmony, or Research on the Means of Restoring, through Rational Planting, the Strength of Temperatures and the Regularity of the Seasons, with the Aid of Our Forests. This work, conceived for the welfare of the countryside, encompasses the existing correlations between mountains, forests, and meteors; temperatures and seasons; the regeneration of springs, the repopulation of streams and rivers; the drainage and cultivation of marshes; the fructification of great roads and pastoral routes; together with some moral reflections on the honours to be rendered to human nature in our funeral ceremonies. Dedicated to the First Consul of the French Republic]
Very rare first edition, illustrated in each volume with a copper-engraved frontispiece by Tardieu after Monnet.
Half black grained cloth bindings, smooth spines decorated with blind fillets, marbled paper boards with light rubbing, sprinkled edges, modest late 19th-century bindings.
Some foxing and a few pale waterstains at the end of the second volume.
This work is an essay whose concerns are strikingly close to our own, though expressed in a very different context.
A founder of French ecological thought, the civil engineer François-Antoine Rauch (1762–1837) demonstrated the direct relationship between deforestation and the increase in extreme weather, calling for the preservation of nature in the interest of humankind. He denounced the large-scale clearing of forests undertaken across continents and advocated the restoration and protection of woodland areas.
In the same spirit, he defended wetlands and marshes, to be made healthy without being drained. The first volume is almost entirely devoted to the dangers and imbalances caused by deforestation; the second focuses on the regeneration of rivers and streams, as well as the drainage of marshes, the whole promoting a return to the “primordial harmony.”