Guettard, Jean Etienne; Memoire sur les Granits de France, Compares a Ceux d'Egyte. Mem. l'Acad. Royale des Scinces, Paris, 1751. Quarto pp. 164-210, folded engraved map.
The work is in a modern full calf with stamped borders and gilt spine titles. The binding is in fine condition. The text and the map are exceptionally clean and bright. The work is in fine condition.
A prominent French naturalist, mineralogist and geologist; Guettard (1715-1786) was born in a small village just south of Paris. Modern geology owes Guettard a debt of gratitude for his development of techniques in observing, describing and accumulating facts regarding rocks and minerals in the field. These techniques were to lead to the construction of the first two geological maps. These appeared in the above publication. Guettard studied the rocks and traced their distribution across Europe. His training as a naturalist also enabled him to recognize and describe the organisms he found in the rocks. He thus also became one of the founders of paleontology. Guettard recognized the distribution of rocks minerals and fossils in regular bands with distinct characteristics and that enabled him to project these bands into unknown terrain. The above work contains an example of one of those maps. Guettard used symbols to denote the various minerals, rocks and fossils and show their distribution on his "mineralogical maps". These were the first ever constructed to express the superficial distribution of minerals and rocks. This would make Guettard the father of geological cartography as well as the father of the Geological Surveys instituted in both the Old and New Worlds.