Beyträge zur Physiognosie und Eautognosie, für Freunde der Naturforschung auf dem Erfahrungswege: von den Jahren 1809, 1810 und 1811 by GRUITHUISEN, Franz von Paula - 1812

München: Ignaz Joseph Lentner, 1812. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. 1st Edition. Hardcover. 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" tall. 8vo (207 x 122 mm). xxiii [1], 446, [2] pp., 4 folding engraved plates and errata leaf at the end. Bound in contemporary half-calf, boards covered with brown marbled paper, spine with gilt decoration and gilt-lettered morocco label, red-dyed edges, original endpapers (rebacked preserving original spine, boards and board-edges rubbed, corners heavily worn, upper joint with worming). Text and plates with minor browning and occasional minor spotting, first free endpaper clipped at upper corner. Provenance: ?Ungethüm (color lithographed bookplate to front pastedown), shelf-mark paper label to upper board. ----

RARE FIRST EDITION of Gruithuisen's collection of observations and studies in a variety of disciplines, such as philosophy, medicine, optics, astronomy or geology. Baron Franz von Paula Gruithuisen (1774-1852) was a Bavarian physician and astronomer. He taught medical students before becoming a professor of astronomy at the University of Munich in 1826. During his period of medical studies and instruction, he was noted for his contributions to urology and lithotripsy. He developed ideas on safer methods to remove bladder stones transurethrally, and his instruments served as models for subsequent devices. Gruithuisen contributions to astronomy were mainly in the area of selenography. He was the first to suggest that craters on the Earth's Moon were caused by meteorite impacts. He believed in the former presence of water on the Moon, a hypothesis which he tried to support with a map in this work showing linear features near the Mare Crisium. He argued that these features which he observed under the telescope resemble stream courses of rivers. Like others before and since his time, Gruithuisen also believed that the Moon was habitable. He made multiple observations of the lunar surface that supported his beliefs, including his announcement of the discovery of a city in the rough terrain to the north of Schröter crater he named the Wallwerk. This region contains a series of somewhat linear ridges that have a fishbone-like pattern, and, with the small refracting telescope he was using, could be perceived as resembling buildings complete with streets. He published his observations in 1824, but they were greeted with much skepticism by other astronomers of the time. His claims were readily refuted using more powerful instruments. Gruithuisen is also noted for the discovery of bright caps on the cusps of the crescent Venus, which he attempted to explain by proposing that jungles on Venus grew more rapidly than in Brazil due to the proximity of the planet to the Sun, and that as a consequence the planet's inhabitants celebrated fire festivals during which they burned massive amounts of vegetation (wikisource). References: Hirsch, II, pp. 873-874; Poggendorff, I, 964-965. - Visit our website to see more images!