⁂ Please note the description of this lot has changed ⁂ Russia.- Chappe d'Auteroche (Jean, Abbé) Voyage en Siberie, fait par l'Ordre du Roi en 1761, 2 vol. in 3 and Atlas, first edition, large paper copy, lacking half-titles to text vol., text with engraved frontispiece, title-vignette, head-piece and 56 plates, most after J.B. Le Prince, 4 double-page, engraved table, Atlas with engraved frontispiece and 30 folding or double-page maps, a few hand-coloured in outline, lightly browned, some spotting and marginal soiling, short tear to outer margin of 4S in vol.2, engraved bookplate of Baron Dimsdale, contemporary tree calf, gilt, rubbed, rebacked preserving old gilt spines with red and green roan labels, cracks to joints, [Cox I, pp.551-62; Hill 277], 4to, Paris, Debure, 1768.

⁂ A fine association copy with the bookplate of Catherine the Great's doctor, Baron Thomas Dimsdale (1712-1800) who in 1768 inoculated her and her son, the Grand Duke Paul, against smallpox, for which he was lavishly rewarded. Chappe d'Auteroche was an astronomer at the Paris Observatory and in 1761 travelled to Siberia to observe the transit of Venus. His comprehensive, often forthright, and occasionally provocative account describes the meteorology, climate, fauna and minerals of the region and also gives a sociological commentary. Hill says that the work "deserves attention for its splendid and accurate engravings". The second volume contains the description of Kamchatka by Kracheninnikov, first published in 1755.