Jefferson’s copy was a present from Monsieur Gentil, premier secrétaire de l’Intendance. It is entered also on the undated manuscript catalogue.

In his memorandums taken on a journey from Paris into the Southern parts of France and Northern Italy in the year 1787, Jefferson wrote: June 6. 7. 8. . . . Tours is at the 119 ^th. mile stone. being desirous of enquiring here into a fact stated by Voltaire in his Questions encyclopediques. art. Coquilles, relative to the growth of shells unconnected with animal bodies at the chateau of Mons ^r. de la Sauvagiere near Tours, I called on M. Gentil . . . he told me he had been in correspondence with Voltaire on that very subject, and was perfectly acquainted with M. de la Sauvagiere, and the Faluniere where the fact is said to have taken place . . . he sais that de la Sauvagiere was a man of truth, & might be relied on for whatever facts he stated as of his own observations: but that he was overcharged with imagination . . . and he gave me a copy of de la Sauvagiere’s Recueil de dissertations, presented him by the author, wherein is one Sur la vegetation spontanée des coquilles du chateau des Places . . .

This part of Jefferson’s memorandum contains several references to the work of La Sauvagère.

In a letter to the Rev. James Madison, dated from Paris on August 13, 1787, Jefferson wrote: “ . . . I have lately become acquainted with a Memoire on a petrification mixed with shells by a Mons ^r. de la Sauvagere giving an exact account of what Voltaire had erroneously stated in his Questions Encyclopediques, article Coquilles, from whence I had transferred it into my notes. having been lately at Tours I had an opportunity of enquiring into de la Sauvagere’s character, & the facts he states . . . the Memoire is out of print. but my bookseller is now in search of it, & if he can find it I will put a copy of it into a box of books I shall send by the September packet . . . ”

A month later on September 18, 1787, in sending a copy of de la Sauvagère’s book on shells to David Rittenhouse, Jefferson wrote: “ . . . I enquired into the character of de la Sauvagere from a gentleman who had known him well. he told me he was a person of talents, but of a heated imagination. however that he might be depended on for any facts advanced on his own knolege . . . ”

Felix François Le Royer d’Artezet de La Sauvagère, 1707-1781, French antiquary.

In a letter to Andrew Ellicott, dated from Washington on October 25, 1805, Jefferson wrote: “ I have not seen the publication by the National institute of the documents proving the falling of stones from the Atmosphere; but I have read Izarn’s lithologie Atmospherique, an 8 ^vo. vol. which is an indus- ”