HALL, JAMES. - A MAIN PAPER IN VULCANOLOGY.

Curious Circumstances, &c Circonstances singulieres desquelles dépendent le caractere vitreux, ou le caractere pierreux, dans les basaltes & les laves; avec d'autres faits, résultant des expériences faites par Sir James Hall... et description de quelques échantillons provenant de ces expériences. (Curious Circumstances Upon Which the Vitreous or the Stony Character of Whinstone and Lava Respectively Depend; With Other Facts. In an Account of Experiments Made by Sir James Hall).

A Geneve, Biblioth. Britannique, AN VI (1798). 8vo. Contemp. marbled boards. Paperlabel with handwritten volume- title on spine. Boards rubbed. In: "Bibliotheque Britannique", Tome Dixieme. Sciences et Arts. Lower right corner of title-page torn away, only loss of paper, no loss of letters. Entire volume offered. 384 pp., 3 engraved plates, 6 folded tables. Internally clean and fine, printed on good paper. Hall's paper: pp. 62-76.

First printing of this fundamental paper in vulcanology, explaining the occurrences of basalts.This French version published at the same time as the English from Nicholson's Journal, vol. 2, pp. 285-88 (the English version being only an abstract of a paper wich was published in full in1805).
"James Hall demonstrates experimentally that lavas when cooled quickly can be fused into glass, which then, if remelted and cooled slowly, can transform back into a more stony substance. He thereby offers an explanation for the occurrence in some dykes of a vitreous outer portion in contact with the surrounding rock (the rock having been relatively cold as the original lava rose into it, hence causing rapid cooling) and a more crystalline structure in the central portions." (Parkinson, "Breakthroughs", 1898 E).

Order-nr.: 50856