Scheuchzer, Johann Jakob; Herbarium diluvianum collectum a Johanne Jacobo Scheuchzero. Lugduni Batavorum, Sumptibus Petri Vander Aa, 1723. Folio, pp. 119, 5 pages index, Frontispiece (engrraved portrait of Scheuchzer), one engraved title-page with vignette, one engraved subtitle with vignette printed in red and black, and 14 engraved plates (numbered Tab. I to Tab. XIV showing fossil leaves, dendrites, quartz crystals and Lustæ Naturæ.
FREE SHIPPING ON ALL ITEMS
This rare work is complete and in a contemporary calf, spine titles perished. The binding is tight and  clean, scuffing to boards. Marbled end sheets, the text is clean, plates very clean. In very good condition.
FREE SHIPPING ON ALL ITEMS
A Swiss geologist and paleontologist, Scheuchzer (1672-1733) is considered the founder of paleobotany. His father, Johann Jakob Scheuchzer (1645-88), was a successful physician in Zürich. In 1679 he became Stadtarzt. He died when Scheuchzer was not quite sixteen. During the 17th and 18th centuries the family was one of the leading families in Zürich.
“Herbarium Diluvianum” is regarded as the first really comprehensive and well illustrated treatise on fossil plants. As the title suggests, Scheuchzer believes the specimens discussed in his work had been preserved from Noah's flood. The work was so well received that it established Scheuchzer as not only the father of Swiss paleobotany but also of European palaeobotany. The copy here is the second and  much enlarged edition. The first edition was published in 1709. His 'Herbarium diluvianum' remained a standard work in paleobotany through the nineteenth century". Scheuchzer provides the first known systematic representation of petrifactions and thereby established paleobotany as a science. The second edition, contains 14 plates instead of only 10 as in the first edition and the important Appendix, published here for the first time, in which Scheuchzer provides his classification of fossil plants. Each of the 14 splendid plates, provide exact reproductions of more than one hundred fossils, and each plate is dedicated to a different contemporary scientist, among them Isaac Newton, and Herman Boerhaave,