With a Study of the Relations of Living and Extinct Faunas as Elucidating the Past Changes of the Earth’s Surface.
First American edition (published in the same year as the English). 2 Vols. 1 Coloured folding map, 6 coloured maps, and 20 engraved plate illustrations. 8vo. xxiv, 503 pp. and x, 607, [1] ii ad pp. Ex library edition. Front 5 gatherings of both volumes coming away from spine. Tear to C1 not affecting the text. Plate xx tissue guard missing. Original orange cloth, gilt title on spine and pictorial covers. Extremities bumped on all corners and spine worn on top and bottom. library stamps and plates within, along with Dewey decimal number inscribed in white on spine of both volumes. Edges browned. New York, Harper and Brothers, 1876.
This important scientific work is probably best epitomised in the author’s own preface: ‘My object has been to show the important bearing of researches into the natural history of every part of the world, upon the study of its past history. An accurate knowledge of any groups of birds or of insects and of their geographical distribution, may enable us to map out the islands and continents of a former epoch, - the amount of difference that exists between the animals of adjacent districts being closely related to preceding geographical changes.’
