DEZALLIER d’ARGENVILLE Antoine Joseph L’Histoire naturelle éclaircie dans une de ses parties principales, l’Oryctologie, qui traite des terres, des pierres, des métaux, des minéraux, et autres fossiles.

Neville, 358; Hoover, 264; Sinkankas, 1680.

First edition. “A scarce work, illustrated with very fine plates. The author, a naturalist, contributed a number of works in the field of natural history based on his studies and travels through France, Italy, and England. Certain portions of this work are of direct chemical interest, not cited by the usual chemical bibliographies” (Neville).

“One of the author’s famous and popular treatises on natural history subjects, this one describing all classes of mineral substances according to a system devised by him in which they are divided into two broad groups: (1) substances occurring naturally in the Earth’s crust, and (2) those which do not. The first group is further subdivided into earths, stones, salts, sulphurs (igneous products), metals and ores, while the second encompasses mineralized or fossilized materials originally of animal or vegetable origin and products of the sea as corals etc. which appear to be stoney in nature. All of this is preceded by a first text part in which a large section is devoted to brief criticism of earlier works bearing upon the matters treated” (Sinkankas).

Fine copy, well preserved.