Nouvelle relation de la France equinoxiale: contenant la description des côtes de la Guiane, de l'Isle de Cayenne, le commerce de cette colonie, les divers changemens arrivés dans ce pays, & les moeurs & coûtumes des différens peuples sauvages qui l'habitent

[4]+iv+250+[1] pages with three folding maps and sixteen folding plates. Duodecimo (6 1/2" x 3 1/2"), full leather, gilt leather spine label with five raised spine bands and red speckled edges. (Sabin 477, LeClerc 119, European Americana 743/19, Field 87) First edition.

Pierre Barrère was a French physician and naturalist. Barrère practised in Perpignan from 1717. In 1722, he voyaged to Cayenne where he stayed for five years. Back in Perpignan, he became professor of botany at the University and doctor in the military hospital. In 1745 he published his Ornithologiae Specimen Novum, sive Series Avium in Ruscinone, Pyrenaeis Montibus, atque in Galliâ Aequinoctiali Observatarum, in Classes, genera & species, novâ methodo, digesta at Perpignan. His classification, entirely based on the form of the beak and feet, divided the birds into four groups : les palmipèdes, les demi-palmipèdes, les fissipèdes et les demi-fissipèdes. Within these groups there was no rank above genera and species and these were more or less disordered. His very artificial classification was soon abandoned. The work was dedicated to Buffon. He published Observations anatomiques tirées des ouvertures d'un grand nombre de cadavres in 1753 at Perpignan. As anonymous the Dissertation sur la cause physique de la couleur des nègres, de la qualité de leurs cheveux, et de la dégénération de l'un et de l'autre, Paris, 1741. He published in 1746 his Observations sur l'origine et la formation des pierres figurées, et sur celles qui, tant extérieurement qu'intérieurement, ont une figure régulière & déterminée at Paris. He was interested in the origin and the nature of fossils and described many from Catalonia and the Pyrenees. He proposed that the fossils of marine Molluscs proved the presence of an ancient ocean. Barrère published two more works, these on his observations in Guyana. These were Essai sur l'histoire naturelle de la France équinoxiale, ou Dénombrement des plantes, des animaux et des minéraux qui se trouvent dans l'isle de Cayenne, les isles de Remire, sur les côtes de la mer et dans le continent de la Guyane (1741) and Nouvelle Relation de la France équinoxiale, contenant la description des côtes de la Guiane, de l'île de Cayenne, le commerce de cette colonie, les divers changements arrivés dans ce pays, et les mœurs et coutumes des différents peuples sauvages qui l'habitent; avec les figures dessinées sur les lieux (1743). This work is mainly devoted to describing the Carib Indians, and is illustrated with the finest plates of Caribs extant, showing native ornaments, boats, weapons, methods of fishing, etc. Remarkably detailed and accurate, the illustrations are of great ethnological interest. Also contains passages on the cultivation of coffee, cocoa, sugar cane, aloes, etc. The maps show the mouth of the Amazon, the island of Cayenne, and the harbor there. "Almost the whole of the text as well as most of the sixteen plates are descriptive of the natives of Guiana, where the author resided. He gives us many new particulars regarding the Indians. (Field).

Condition:

Rear joint starting; wear to extremities; early amateurish spine ends repair, corners bumped and rubbed, some old worming to spine else a good copy (internally very good).