Sale 2501 - Early Printed, Medical, Scientific & Travel Books, March 7, 2019

227 c   AGRICOLA, GEORG. De ortu & causis subterraneorum Lib. V [and other texts]. 487, [53] pages, including blanks g6 and M6. bound with his : De mensuris & ponderibus Romanorum atque Graecorum Lib. V [etc.]. [8], 340, [16] pages, including blank q8. Together, 2 volumes in one. Folio, 313x202 mm, contemporary blind-tooled pigskin over wooden boards with brass catches, lacking clasps, worn overall, spine darkened, front endpapers sympathetically renewed; contents of the first work crisp and clean apart from light soiling on title, dampstain along fore edge of a d5 and h2-3, and scattered pencil marginalia, occasional toning in the second work with light marginal dampstaining toward end. Stamp of the Bohemian German geologist Gustav Carl Laube (1839-1923) on first title. Basel: (Hieronymus Froben & Nicolaus Episcopius, September) 1546; (March) 1550 [6,000/9,000] first editions . The first work is a collection of some of Agricola’s most important writings on geology, mineralogy, and mining, comprising the previously unpublished De ortu & causis subterraneorum, the first study of physical geology; De natura eorum quæ effluunt ex terra, on subterranean water and gases; De natura fossilium, the first systematic mineralogy; De veteribus et novis metallis, the first history of ore mining; the text of his 1530 mining dialogue Bermannus; and a Latin-German glossary of mineralogical and metallurgical terms. The second work is his monograph on ancient Greek and Roman weights and measures. Norman 19; Partington II, 44-45. SCIENCE LOTS 227 - 245