⁂ Please note the description of this lot has changed ⁂

Geology.- [Stensen (Niels)] De Solido intra solidum naturaliter contento dissertationis prodromus, first edition, title in red and black with engraved vignette (lightly stained), folding engraved plate at end, spotting, contemporary limp vellum, lower joint splitting at head, a remboitage with this work inserted into an old binding, [Dibner Heralds 90; Grolier Science 96; Norman 2013; PMM 151; Waller 12170], 4to, Florence, Ex Typographia sub signo Stellae, 1669.

⁂ Very good copy of the first edition of Steno's important contribution to the fields of geology and fossils. Nicolaus Steno (1638-86, aka Niels Stensen) was a Danish geologist and anatomist who settled in Florence as physician to Grand Duke Ferdinand II, the dedicatee of this work. In it "he described the composition of the earth's crust in Tuscany and a famous diagram in his book shows six successive types of stratification: the first attempt ever made to represent geological sections....He explained the true origin of fossils found in the earth as being remains of once living things and he discrimiated between the volcanic, chemical and mechanical modes of the origin of the rocks. He was the first clearly to recognize that the strata of the earth's crust contain the records of a chronological sequence of events from which the history of the earth can be reconstructed." (PMM).