Rare mineralogy book: Hill, John; Fossils Arranged According to their Obvious Characters..1771

Hill, John; Fossils Arranged According to their Obvious Characters; with their History and description under the Articles of Form, Hardness, Weight, Surface, Color, and Qualities; The Place of their Production, Their Uses, and Distinctive English, and Classical Latin Names. By J. Hill, M.D. Member of the Imperial Academy. London: Printed for R. Baldwin, in Pater-noster Row; and P. Elmsly, in the Strand, 1771. Octavo, pp. viii, 9- 420, 16, 1 folded table, numerous double page tables.

The work is complete and in a contemporary calf with raised spine bands and gilt titles. The binding is tight with restoration at margins of boards. The text and tables are very clean, owners small book plate on paste down. In very good condition.


Hill (1716-1775) was an English apothecary, botanist and writer and was often considered to be rather eccentric. He published and managed the British Magazine from 1746 to 1750 and contributed articles to various other periodicals. Hill regularly attacked the Royal Society, which steadfastly ignored his scientific contributions. He was a prolific author of compilations and translations dealing with medicine, botany, horticulture and natural history and made many contribution to mineralogy. His work Fossils Arranged is one of his scarcer works. In it he describes minerals based on their physical properties such as hardness, color, weight, surface texture and uses and arranges the minerals in a series of tables. The large folded table outlines the system used to distribute the minerals. He used this method of arrangement of minerals in order to avoid the need for chemical experiments. Hill provides synonyms to Wallerius, Linneaus and his own earlier work History of Fossils. With this classification system, Hill anticipated Werner in the use of physical characters to distinguish between mineral species.