GMELIN, Johann Georg. Voyage en Sibérie, contenant la description des moeurs & usages des peuples de ce pays, le cours des rivieres considérables, la situation des chaînes de montagnes, des grandes forêts, des mines, avec tous les faits d'histoire naturelle qui sont particuliers à cette contrée ... Traduction libre de l'original allemand, par M. [Louis-Felix Guinement] de Keralio. Paris: Desaint. 1767.
Two volumes, 12mo. Contemporary calf, spine with raised bands, lettering-pieces and directly numbered in gilt; pp. I: xxii, 430; II: [4], xx-xxii (complete), 324, [4]; engraved plate and engraved folding plate of musical notation, woodcut head- and tailpieces; light wear to extremities, on hinge tender, but holding firm, pp. 31-2 in volume II with tiny oxidation hole, otherwise remarkably clean and fresh internally; provenance: contemporary engraved armorial bookplates of James Forbes, 16th Lord Forbes (d. 1804) to front pastedowns; an attractive set with both half-titles present.
First edition in French of the results of the scientific expedition into Siberia, lasting from 1733 to 1743, which led Gmelin, the historian Gerhard Friedrich Müller and the astronomer Louis de l’Isle via Tobolsk, Tomsk and Krasnoiarsk to Irkutsk. In September 1735 the expedition reached Iakutsk, from where they undertook excursions into the wider surroundings until May 1737. Most of Gmelin’s collected material was destroyed by fire, and problems with the local authorities made him abandon his original plan to continue his journey to Kamchatka, where he was supposed to join Bering’s naval expedition. Gmelin returned to Saint Petersburg in 1743, heavily laden with botanical and zoological specimens, which he started to catalogue and assess, continuing at his birthplace Tübingen, where he was immediately appointed professor of botany and chemistry. Gmelin’s voyage marks the beginning of modern scientific research of the Asian part of the Russian empire.
Henze II, p.357; Brunet VI, 20769. Cox I:351; Howes G-212; Lada-Mocarski 5 (German edition); Wickersham 6103.
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