SIBERIA AND KAMCHATKA

CHAPPE d'AUTEROCHE, JEAN and (S.P.) KRACHENINNIKOW (KRASCHENINNIKOFF).

Voyage en Sibérie, fait par Ordre du Roi en 1761, contenant Les Moeurs, les Usages des Russes, & l'Etat actuel de cette Puissance; &c. 2 vols. (and) Kracheninnikow: Histoire et Description du Kamtchatka. Contenant I. Les Moeurs & Les Coutumes de Habitants...II. La Géographie du Kamtchatka, & des Pays Circonvoisins. III. les avantages & les desavantages du Kamtchatka. IV. la reduction du Kamtchatka par les Russes, les révoltes arrivées en différents temps, & l'etat actuel des Forts de la Russie dans de Pays. 2 vols. (4 Parties). Traduit du Russe.

Amsterdam, Marc-Michel Rey, 1769-70 and 1770. Bound in two fine uniform cont. hcalf., raised bands, gilt back, tome-and title-labels gilt. (Chappe in the first volume and Kracheninnikow in the second). 2 htitles, 2 titles. (4),VIII,(4),686 pp. 7 engraved plates (incl. folded frontispiece) and 5 folded tables. - 2 htitles, 2 titles (each with engraved vignette). (4),XVI,439;(4),492 pp. + Avis au Relieur, and 7 folded engraved plates, 2 large folded engraved maps. Printed on fine clean writing-paper.

These two separate works were issued by the same printer at the same time, but are independent treatises. They both remain fundamental texts of Siberian scholarship, and both are some of the first descriptions at all of the areas concerned.

First issued in Paris 1761 together with an atlas. Chappe: second edition of his work. Kracheninnikow: the third edition, but the first translated directly from the Russian and approved by a member of the Academy in St. Petersbourg. The first French, the first English and the first German editions were only issued in abridged form. The first Russian edition appeared in 1755.

Kracheninnikow joined the Russian scientific expedition to East Siberia, lead by Gmelin, and he was the only member of the expedition to penetrate Kamtchatka; he stayed there for four years. The work contains a detailed description of the North-east Coast of America, Alaska, and the Aleutian Islands and thus constitutes one of the first descriptions at all of these parts of the world.

Sabin 38304. - Brunet I:1798.

Order-nr.: 28352