?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
LA CONDAMINE, CHARLES-MARIE DE. Journal du Voyage fait par Ordre du Roi, à l'Équateur, servant d'Introduction Historique à la Mesure des Trois Premiers Degrés du Méridien. 3 engraved plates; 2 maps; folding letterpress table. [2], xxxvi, 280, xv pages. bound with: LA CONDAMINE, CHARLES-MARIE DE. Mesure des Trois Premiers Degrés du Méridien dans l'Hémisphère Australe. 3 engraved plates; large folding map of the province of Quito. [12], 266, x pages * LA CONDAMINE, CHARLES-MARIE DE. Supplément au Journal Historique du Voyage à l'Équateur et au Livre de la Mesure des Trois Premiers Degrés du Méridien. [4], viii, 52; [8], 222, xxviii pages. bound with: BOUGUER, PIERRE. Lettre à Monsieur *** dans laquelle on discute Divers Points d'Astronomie-Pratique, et ou l'on fait quelques Remarques sur le Supplément au Journal Historique du Voyage a l'Équateur de M. de la C. pages. Together, 4 works in 2 volumes. 4to, 252x193 mm, contemporary mottled calf gilt, front joint restored, and 251x191 mm, contemporary 1/4 speckled sheep with red morocco lettering piece; some toning and foxing, mostly marginal, last few leaves of Supplément charred along bottom edge, last leaf of Bouguer mounted. Bookplate of P. Hendée in first volume; 19th-century Saint-Acheul(?) Jesuit stamp ("Domus Acheolana") in second. Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1751; Imprimerie Royale, 1751; Durand & Pissot, 1752; Hipp. Louis Guérin & L. Fr. Delatour, 1754
first editions of works relating to the French geodetic expedition to Peru to measure several degrees of the meridian near the Equator, after an earlier French mission to Lapland had performed the same task at the Arctic circle, to resolve the controversy in French scientific circles over the shape of the earth. The results confirmed Newton's theory that the earth was a spheroid flattened at the poles. BEA, pages 249-50; DSB XV, 270-71; Norman 1249-50 (first 2 works).
