MONTLOSIER, F.-D. de Reynaud, Count of.

MONTLOSIER (F.-D. de Reynaud, Count of).

Essay on the Theory of the Volcanoes of Auvergne.

Published in Riom and Clermont by Landriot and Rousset, and in Paris by Belin and Ancelle, Year X (1802).

Small 8vo, 184 pp., on laid paper with full margins. Bound in contemporary marbled paper, remaining as published, author’s name in pen on the front cover (slight oxidation of the paper, some soiling, a trace of water damage in the centre on a few leaves, section A is bound out of order but complete).

An important edition of one of the very first treatises on volcanology, a work by the Comte de Montlosier (1755–1838), who was the first to assert that ‘the fusion of the lava ejected by volcanoes is not due to subterranean combustion and [that] it is not through a lack of carbon fuel that volcanoes become extinct’ 

Second and final edition. The BnF indicates that there are two versions of the title page, one bearing the author’s name (and specifying that this edition is corrected and copied from the original of 1789), the other without such a mention, as in our copy. It is important to note that the printing privilege was shared between Paris, Riom and Clermont; however, as the references appear in two different places within the work, one might assume there are three different editions, including the 1789 version, but this is not the case.

Copy annotated by Jean-Baptiste Tailhand (1771–1849) in pen in the margins, with his handwritten bookplate on the title page.

Tailhand (1771–1849), President of the General Council of Riom under the Directory, was a lawyer and then a judge, becoming Attorney General in 1830; he presided over the Academy of

Sciences, Belles-Lettres and Arts of Clermont-Ferrand from 1838 to 1849.

The nephew of Convention member Gilbert Romme (1750–1795), his first schoolteacher, who taught him ‘the basics of physics and mathematics, as well as those of botany and mineralogy’, he also maintained a correspondence with Gillet de Laumont (1747–1834), the famous mining engineer.

Tailhand’s notes, abundant and precise, employ scholarly vocabulary and demonstrate a deep knowledge of local geology and volcanoes. He occasionally highlights what he considers to be Montlosier’s shortcomings regarding topography and physical explanations.

Larouziere, Le Comte de Montlosier… 2003. Conchon, Éloge biographique de M. J.-B. Tailhand, président de chambre à la Cour d'appel de Riom et directeur de l’Académie des Sciences…, 1850.