Together 58 volumes. 8vo. It is clear from the different entries in Jefferson’s manuscript catalogue, and in the Library of Congress printed catalogue of 1815, that Jefferson had two sets of Voltaire’s works. An edition in
40 volumes was printed in Geneva in 1775. The 70-volume edition printed in Kehl by the Société Typographique was printed from
1785 to 1789. It seems probable therefore that Jefferson had the whole of the Geneva edition, and 18 volumes of the edition
printed at Kehl at the press established there by Beaumarchais, edited by Decrois, and with notes by Condorcet, and illustrated
with plates. [“
Recueil des lettres de Voltaire. 18. v. 8
vo. 1785.
”
is listed among the Books in the 1783-1814 Catalogue not sold to Congress; clearly this is an error and the 1815 Catalogue
reference should encompass both of the MS. entries
--
Ed.]
Quérard X, 373, 376.
De Ricci-Cohen 1042.
Jefferson’s main references to Voltaire in his writings seem to be in relation to his article in the
Encyclopédie
on Coquilles. In the
Notes on the State of Virginia
, page 52, in the answer to Query VI, relative to the formation of shells, Jefferson wrote:
M. de Voltaire, has suggested a third solution of this difficulty. (Quest encycl. Coquilles) he cites an instance in Touraine,
where, in the space of 80 years, a particular spot of earth had been twice metamorphosed in to soft stone, which had become
hard when employed in building: in this stone, shells of various kinds were produced, discoverable at first only with the
microscope, but afterwards growing with the stone. From this fact, I suppose, he would have us infer that besides the usual
process for generating shells by the elaboration of earth and water in animal vessels, nature may have provided an equivalent
operation, by passing the same materials through the pores of calcareous earths and stones: as we see calcareous drop stones
generating every day by the percolation of water through limestone, and new marble forming in the quarries from which the
old has been taken out . . . The establishment of the instance, cited by M. de Voltaire, of the growth of shells unattached
to animal bodies, would have been that of his theory. But he has not established it. He has not even left it on ground so
respectable as to have rendered it an object of enquiry to the literati of his own country . . .
See also no. 647 in this catalogue, where Voltaire and his article on Coquilles are discussed.
For separate works by Voltaire, see the Index.
[4923]
37
Oeuvres de Maupertius.
4. v.
8
vo.
1815 Catalogue, page 170, no. 16, as above.
MAUPERTUIS,
Pierre Louis Moreau de.
Œuvres de Mr. de Maupertuis. Nouvelle Edition corrigée & augmentée. Tome Premier [-Quatrieme]. A
Lyon: [de l’Imprimerie de
Louis Buisson] Chez
Jean-Marie Bruyset, Libraire, grande rue Merciere, au Soleil.
m. dcc. lvi
. Avec Approbation, & Privilege du Roi. [1756.]
Q113 .M45 1756
4 vol. 8vo. 352, 208, 242 and 186 leaves, half-titles, title-pages in red and black, engraved portrait frontispiece by J. Daullé, 1755, after Tournière, engraved map by Vallet in Vol. III (Carte de l’Arc du Méridien mesuré au Cercle Polaire), mathematical diagrams in the last volume, printer’s imprint
on the verso of the last leaf.
This edition not in Quérard and not in Brunet.
Not in Lalande.
Jefferson bought his copy from
Lackington of London, selected from his catalogue for 1792, no. 12859, price
10.0. The book was ordered through A. Donald in a letter dated Nov. 23, 1791, and billed on December 31 (receipted Jan. 2, 1792).
Jefferson commented on a theory of Maupertuis in a letter to the Rev. James Madison, dated from Paris August 13, 1787: “
. . . I think your conjecture that the periodical variation of light in certain fixed stars proceeds from Maculae is more
probable than that of Maupertuis who supposes those bodies may be flat, & more probable also than that which supposes the
star to have an orbit of revolution so large as to vary sensibly it’s degree of light . . .
”
Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, 1698-1759, French mathematician and astronomer, was a member of the Académie des Sciences in Paris, of the Royal Society
in London, and of a number of other learned and scientific societies. In 1736 he was chief of an expedition sent by Louis
XV into Lapland, his account of which will be found in the third volume of this edition of his
Oeuvres. See also no. 3803[.]
[4924]
