[Mineralogy of the Alps] Gilbert, naturalist.... - Lot 38 - Conan Belleville Hôtel d'Ainay

[Mineralogy of the Alps] Gilbert, naturalist. L.A.S. to a prominent mineralogist. Martigny [Valais, Switzerland], August 25, 1797. 7 pp. in-4. A long and very interesting letter from this amateur mineralogist and naturalist, who travelled all over "the chain of the Alps between Mont-Blanc and St-Gothard, i.e. all the left bank of the Rhone from its source to its mouth in Lake Geneva", collecting a large number of rock, fossil and plant samples. In this letter to an eminent mineralogist who also travelled through the region, he describes his discoveries at length. "I have climbed to the tops of all the transverse valleys. I have acquired all the fossils of the St. Gotthard so that I can provide a collection according to the nomenclature of these mountains given to the public with the mineralogical map by Mrs. Struve and Vanbercken []. One still finds in the lake a kind of spathe radiated stone which Mr. de SAUSSURE confuses with the stones of Horn and which holds the middle, between laminated Horblende and smaragdite, plus another variety with metallic brilliance of which no description has yet been given; I found the source at the foot of the Matterhorn []. The use I have of doing all my running at least in the interesting and most difficult places has made me discover the Isabelle quadrilateral mica which may have escaped you if you have not used the same guides who saw me pick it up []. I can't flatter myself to be a mineralogist but since the time I've been doing this science, I've learned to know the fossils and moreover I know their site in all the high Alps as well as that of all the volcanic substances in the mountains of France. Moreover, I am in close contact with one of your correspondent scientists for the arts and manufactures, Professor Struve of Lausanne [].