Lot 71
Hutton, James
The Theory of the Earth, from the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
The Library of James Stirling, Mathematician
Auction: 23 October 2025 from 13:00 GMT
Description
[Edinburgh, c.1787]. [2] 96 [2] pp., half-title, ‘Explanation of Plate' leaf to rear, 2 engraved plates, caption-title to p. 1 [ESTC T53062; Norman 1130].
[Bound after:] Whitehurst, John. An Inquiry into the Original State and Formation of the Earth. London: for the author, 1778. [8] 199, half-title, 4 engraved plates (2 folding), with one additional folding plate apparently not called for ('Section of the … Lead Mines in Wear-Dale', frayed).
2 works in 1 volume, 4to (25.6 x 19.8cm), contemporary marbled calf, red morocco spine-label ('Theorys of the Earth'), marbled edges
Footnote
First edition, the extremely rare offprint issue, of one of the most important scientific papers ever published, apparently preceding its appearance in the first volume of the Transactions of the Royal Society in Edinburgh in 1788. The paper was read to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in March and April 1785, and ‘offprints … were in circulation in 1787, and possibly in 1786’ (DSB). It proposed for the first time that geological phenomena were to be explained by immutable laws rather than supernatural intervention, an interpretation which came to be known as 'uniformitarianism'. The paper was expanded by Hutton for publication in book form, of which the first two volumes of a projected three were published in 1795; the work remained incomplete on Hutton's death in 1797, with the third and final volume, compiled from his notes, not appearing until 1899.