Details
MARSIGLI, Luigi Ferdinando, Comte de (1658-1730). Histoire physique de la mer. Amsterdam: aux dpens de la Compagnie, 1725.
2o (361 x 235 mm). Title printed in red with engraved vignette printed in black, engraved frontispiece by M. Pool, 2 folding engraved maps, 3 engraved elevations, 6 engraved tables (all but one folding), one unsigned engraved plate, and 40 engraved plates by M. Pool. (Short tear at inner margin of frontispiece just crossing plate-mark, partial separation along inner edge of type-page on (a)1 touching some letters slightly.) Contemporary speckled calf gilt (rebacked, minor wear to corners). Provenance: Philip Miller (1691-1771), presumably the famous gardener and botanist who wrote The Gardener's and Florist's Dictionary in 1724 (contemporary signature on front pastedown).
FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST BOOK DEVOTED ENTIRELY TO MARINE SCIENCE, and the first oceanographic study of a single region. Marsigli conducted an intensive investigation of the Gulf of Lyon in the south of France, taking soundings to obtain a profile of the sea floor, analyzing the relationship of the lands under and above the water, studying the water's physical properties and its motions, and the examining the biology of the sea, which foretold the advent of marine botany. Among the plants he numbered animals like corals, which before his time had been regarded as inorganic matter. His work prefigured the systematic oceanographic exploration that was to begin fifty years later with Cooke's famous voyage of the Endeavour. Nissen ZBI 2699; Norman 1445.
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FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST BOOK DEVOTED ENTIRELY TO MARINE SCIENCE, and the first oceanographic study of a single region. Marsigli conducted an intensive investigation of the Gulf of Lyon in the south of France, taking soundings to obtain a profile of the sea floor, analyzing the relationship of the lands under and above the water, studying the water's physical properties and its motions, and the examining the biology of the sea, which foretold the advent of marine botany. Among the plants he numbered animals like corals, which before his time had been regarded as inorganic matter. His work prefigured the systematic oceanographic exploration that was to begin fifty years later with Cooke's famous voyage of the Endeavour. Nissen ZBI 2699; Norman 1445.