Stuttgart, Hoffmann, 1846. 4to (26.4 x 20.6 cm). Title page, 174 pp.; 64 engraved plates of which 56 finely hand-coloured, some heightened with gum arabic, or gold. Contemporary half morocco over marbled boards. Spine with five raised, gilt-ornamented bands; compartments rich gilt with floral borders and gilt title. Marbled endpapers; marbled edges.

First edition of this beautifully illustrated work. Mesozoic invertebrates, particularly molluscs, but also corals, brachiopods, etc., feature prominently. Written by the German medical doctor, geologist, mineralogist and palaeontologist Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Schmidt (1799-1863). Why he changed his initials to F. A. is a mystery. Plates 27, and 58 to 63 are uncoloured, showing mainly Tertiary and Quaternary mammal skeletons; the last plate is a diagram of the Jurassic in the Swiss Alps. Provenance: stamp of the Belgian polymath Albert Jacques Joseph van de Velde, (1871-1956) "A. J. J. Van de Velde Gandav." [Gandavensis = from Gand, Ghent, or Gent] on the first blank recto; and on the front pastedown a mineralogical bookplate of the French mineralogist and professor at the École des Mines, Claude Jean Guy Guillemin (1923-1994), who was a co-founder of the International Mineralogical Association. Apart from some minimal foxing on a few text leaves, an excellent, clean copy. Very rare in this superb state. Cat. BM(NH) p. 1847; Nissen ZBI, 3721. Not in Ward and Carozzi.