Recherches sur les volcans éteints du Vivarais et du Velay

First edition, illustrated with twenty plates, including one folding plate. Three vignettes and several ornamental initials.

Full basane binding, triple gilt fillet framing the boards, spine with six raised bands decorated with gilt compartments, fleurons and rolls, green morocco title-piece, gilt fillet on the board edges, gilt inner dentelle, stone paper boards. Binding rubbed and scuffed, with abrasions and losses, upper joint split and lower joint partially split at the foot, old traces of mould staining in the margins of several leaves at the beginning of the volume.

Manuscript inscription "Sansac" on the title page.

An important work presenting the sum of the knowledge on the formation of volcanoes reported by Barthélemy Faujas de Saint-Fond from his expeditions in the Auvergne, with several detailed engravings.

In this work, the French geologist and great traveller Barthélemy Faujas de Saint-Fond (1741-1819) examines the volcanoes of the historic regions of central and southeastern France, the Vivarais and the Velay, as well as various rocks, including pozzolana, used in the manufacture of cement. In it he sets out his theory on the origin of volcanoes and confirms the volcanic origin of basalt - previously, this rock was believed to have formed through crystallization in water, a theory known as "Neptunism." His rich account of the geology of the Auvergne is all the more valuable for being based entirely on his own observations made during his expeditions, in the course of which he also assembled an important collection of various types of basalt. A friend of Buffon, he was reportedly invited by him to contribute to the geological section of his Histoire naturelle, and Buffon helped him gain admission to the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, where he became the first holder of the chair of geology, five years after the publication of the present work.

The illustrations are among the great riches of the Recherches sur les volcans éteints du Vivarais et du Velay. The naturalistic views, emphasizing the detailed rocky structure of the volcanoes, were produced by some of the finest draughtsmen and engravers of the eighteenth century. Several are in fact by Arnauld-Éloi Gautier-Dagoty, second son of Jacques Fabien Gautier Dagoty and heir to his famous technique of four-colour anatomical mezzotint engraving.

A fine, richly illustrated work, encapsulating the latest geological discoveries of the Age of Enlightenment.