Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste; Hydrogéologie, ou Recherches sur l'influence qu'ont les eaux sur la surface du globe terrestre. enfin sur les changemens que les corps vivans exercent sur la nature et l'état de cette surface. Paris l'auteur, Agasse, Maillard An X - 1802. Octavo, pp. 268, 19th century vellum and marbled boards, gilt spine label, text exceptionally clean and bright, very good. Rare.

A French soldier turned botanist, zoologist and geologist; Lamarck ( 1744-1829) is considered one of the prominent thinkers in geology. He was one of the ealy proponents of biological evolution and considered the earth to be quite old and thought in terms of hundreds of millions of years old. His above treatise "Hydrogéologie"is the first edition of one of his most important works. Geikie; in his treatise covering the history of geological thought, devotes some 13 pages to an analysis of this book. Lamarck realised more clearly than most of his contemporaries, the part played by waters on the formation of the surface of the land. Based on observations, he demonstrated that the sea has once covered many parts of the surface of the globe and had now receded from these areas. His evidence rests in part on the occurrence of organic remains. He felt the term "fossil" had been indiscriminately applied to any mineral substance dug out of the earth, and Lamarck now for the first time definitely restricts it to the "still recognisable remains of organised bodies". In many ways Lamarck with this work started the science of Palæontology, in promoting the doctrine of evolution and in affirming some of the fundamental principles of modern geology. Another notable feature of the work is Lamarck's coining of the term "biologie". Only 1025 copies of the work were printed and the cost of printing was paid for by Lamarck.