Count De Bournon Descriptions of the Arseniates of Copper an...

Hammer

£950

Count De Bournon Descriptions of the Arseniates of Copper and of Iron, from the County of Cornwall Twenty four pages with three foldout diagrams of crystals at the back in a contemporary half calf binding with bright gilt lettering to the front cover, a first edition read before the Royal Society, February 19th, 1801. Count De Bournon was a French soldier and mineralogist having studied crystallography, who came to England after the French Revolution. He was a member of the Royal Society and a founding member of the Geological Society. Upon the recommendation of William Babbington, the Count was employed by Sir John St Aubyn to curate and catalogue his mineral collection. This collection was moved to London alongside the collections of Sir Abraham Hume and Sir Charles Greville on which he was also working. He began to catalogue the collection based on crystal structure but was unable to finish due to the collection being moved back to Cornwall in 1806. The catalogue was written in French and is held alongside Sir John St Aubyn’s collection at Plymouth City Museum. Interestingly, the majority of the specimens of arseniates in Sir John St Aubyn’s collection were collected from a new copper mine, Huel Gorland in the parish of Gwennap. Indeed, this mine enriched the cabinets of London.