Collation: 8vo, pp. [x] 519 [5].
Plates: 9 folding lithographed plates: numbered Pl. 1–7 and 2 unnumbered maps, the second hand-coloured.
Condition: 220 x 135mm. Foxed, largely unopened.
Binding: Original pink wrappers. Rebacked.
Provenance: Faint library stamp on half-title (illegible); book-sellers label ‘Librairie des Sciences Générales, H. Bécus [Paris]’ dated November 1896 inside wrapper.
References: Challionor 96; Ward and Carozzi 270.
Price: £500

First edition.
¶ The first account of the geology of Scotland: ‘in many respects this remarkable work was far in advance of its time …’ (Geike). Born in Hamburg to Swiss parents Boué studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, where one of his teachers was Robert Jameson who introduced him to the study of geology, to which he devoted the rest of his life. The book is dedicated to Jameson. ‘He rambled far and wide over Scotland, and formed his own conclusions as to the origin and age of many of the igneous rocks so abundantly developed in that country’ (Geike Founders of geology p. 264). He obtained his MD from Edinburgh in 1817, defending a thesis on the botanical geography of Scotland.
   Ami Boué in his ‘Geological Essay on Scotland’ (1820), distinguished very exactly between basaltic sheets and dykes, and described the various volcanic rocks petrographically. Although a student of Jameson, he atttached himself to Hutton’s party in regard to the origin of basalt, phonolite, trachyte, porphyry, and granite.
Zittel p. 270.