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On the relation between plants and minerals

HENCKEL (HENKEL), Johann Friedrich.
Flora saturnizans, die Verwandtschafft des Pflanzen mit dem Mineral-Reich, nach der Natural-Historie und Chymie aus vielen Anmerckungen und Proben ...
Leipzig, Johann Christian Martini, 1722. 8vo. With engraved frontispiece showing a mining operation, and 9 engraved plates. 18th-century vellum. [10], 671, [17] pp.
€ 2,800
First edition of a study of the relation between plants and minerals, generally recognized as Henckel's first major work. He "described in his many books ... the best early accounts of arsenic, zinc, and a variety of pyrites" (Hoover). Henckel compares the formation of minerals to the growth of plants, used chemical techniques, recognizes the alkali content of plants, already present to some extent in living specimens but increased by burning, and finally describes a method for making blue glass. The illustrations include both living and fossil plants, as well as a shell.
Johann Friedrich Henckel (1678-1744) worked as a physician in the mining town of Freiberg in Saxony. In 1730 he was appointed councillor of the mines and was able to establish a large laboratory, where he resumed his course in metallurgical chemistry, which became renowned throughout Europe.
With early manuscript annotations on endpapers and title-page. Trimmed close to the text of the title-page, dedication and frontispiece, just shaving the corner of the frontispiece but with no significant loss. In good condition. DSB VI, pp. 259-260; Hoover 399; Partington II, pp. 706-709; Schuh, Henckel 1.
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Related Subjects:

Natural history  >  Botany (General)
Science & technology  >  Mineralogy & Gems | Physics & Chemistry