To learn, as far as observation has informed us, the ordinary arrangement of the different strata of minerals in the earth,
to know from their habitual collocations and proximities, where we find one mineral, whether another, for which we are seeking,
may be expected to be in it’s neighborhood, is useful. but the dreams about the modes of creation, enquiries whether our globe
has been formed by the agency of fire or water, how many millions of years it has cost Vulcan or Neptune to produce what the
fiat of the Creator would effect by a single act of will, is too idle to be worth a single hour of any man’s life.
letter from
Thomas Jefferson
to dr. john p. emmet, may 2, 1826.
John P. Emmet was professor of chemistry and materia medica at the University of Virginia.
J.1
Mineralogie de Haüy.
5. v.
8
vo.
1815 Catalogue, page 49. no. 2, Mineralogie de Haiiy, 5 v 8vo.
HAÜY,
René Just.
Traité de Minéralogie, par le C
en. Haüy . . . Publié par le Conseil des Mines. En
cinq volumes, dont un contient 86 planches. Tome Premier [-Cinquième].
Paris: de l’Imprimerie de
Delance: chez
Louis, (X)
1801.
QE363 .H2
First Edition. 5 vol. 8vo. Vol. I, 278 leaves; vol. II, 312 leaves; vol. III, 307 leaves; vol. IV, 299 leaves; vol. V, 10 leaves
of text, LXXXVI folded numbered plates: the title-page of the last volume reads:
Traité de Minéralogie par le C
en. Haüy . . . Tome Cinquième. Caractères Minéralogiques. Distributon methodique des Minéraux. Figures Géométriques. A Paris: chez
Louis,
(
X)
1801. With the autograph signature of the publisher,
Louis, at the foot of the copy-right notice in the first volume.
Quérard IV, page 42.
Agassiz II, page 203, no. 1 (with date 1802).
Poggendorff I, 1039.
Bound for Jefferson in tree calf, gilt, marbled end papers by John March. The volume of plates was issued originally as an
oblong octavo. Jefferson had the contents folded and bound to size in the small octavo format. The lettering on the labels
on the back reads
Minerologie de Hauy as on March’s bill quoted below. Jefferson’s lettering slips are not present, but Mineralogie is invariably correctly spelled by him. Initialled
by Jefferson at sigs. I and T in the four volumes of text. With the Library of Congress 1815 bookplate.
Jefferson bought this work from
Reibelt, in 1805. On January 23 he wrote sending a list of books he had selected from his catalogue including the “
Traité de mineralogie par Haüy 5. v.”
It was included in Reibelt’s bill, sent on January 25, 4 v. in 8vo. av. 1 Atlas,
1152 cents, and paid by Jefferson on March 7.
The books are listed on John March’s binding bill, under date March 7, 1805, with the misspelling
Minerologie as on the lettering on the morocco labels. The octavo volumes cost $1.00 each, and the volume of plates “
very difficult” $2.00.
On a later bill from March, under date June 30, 1807 occurs the entry: “
1 Minerologie Du Heüy 5th vol.--plates very troublesome. $2.00.”
Jefferson mentioned Haüy’s system of classification in the letter to John Manners, written on February 22, 1814. Referring
to the system of Linnaeus, which, he wrote, was getting into common use, Jefferson continued: “
. . . to disturb it then was unfortunate. the new systems attempted in Botany by Jussieu, in Mineralogy by Haüy, are subjects
of the same regret; and so also the no-system of Buffon, the great advocate of individualism, in opposition to classification
. . .
”
René Just Haüy, 1743-1822, French mineralogist.
[1089]
