Mineralogy.- Romé de Lisle (J.B.L.) Description Méthodique d'une Collection de Minéraux du Cabinet de M.D.R.D.L., first edition, engraved frontispiece, J.A. Freilich bookplate, contemporary French mottled calf, gilt spine with floral motif and red morocco label, spine ends slightly chipped, [Hoover 690; Ward & Carozzi 1908], 8vo, Paris, Didot Jeune and Knapen, 1773.

⁂ First edition of the author's catalogue of his own collection of minerals. Romé "earned money by cataloguing at least fourteen mineral collections according to his own, probably incomplete, list in the bibliography to his Cristallographie of 1783. Three of the catalogues remained in manuscript... In 1773 he brought out a description of the metallic ores of his own mineral cabinet in which he discussed the origin, metamorphosis and paragenesis of each" (DSB). The descriptions are highly detailed in terms of locale, mineral and crystal structure, composition etc. The minerals are cross-referenced to Romé's 'Essai de cristallographie' (1772), the work in which he had established that crystallography was the basis of mineralogical classification.