Lot 24: SMITH, William (1769-1839). Strata Identified by Organized Fossils, containing prints on colored paper of the most characteristic specimens in each stratum . London: W. Arding for the author, J. Sowerby, Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, [et al.],

SMITH, William (1769-1839). Strata Identified by Organized Fossils, containing prints on colored paper of the most characteristic specimens in each stratum. London: W. Arding for the author, J. Sowerby, Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, [et al.], June 1, 1816 and October 1, 1816. First 2 parts (only, of 4, 4° (307 x 258mm). Collation: 10 leaves, paginated [4] 1-16. Hand-coloured engraved frontispiece and 8 hand-coloured or hand-tinted engraved plates, of which the frontispiece and 2 plates printed on plain paper (the frontispiece and plate 4, Lower Chalk, on thick paper), 5 on coloured paper, and 1 on paper tinted on the printed side only, frontispiece and plates 1-3 numbered (frontispiece numbered '1' and plate 1 numbered '2'), the remainder unnumbered, all but the frontispiece with engraved captions. (Occasional very light offsetting to text, frontispiece and plates 1, 4 and 7 lightly spotted, plates and text leaves very slightly frayed at edges, plate 5 slightly chipped at top margin.) Original printed blue paper wrappers, contained in a recent red morocco backed cloth box, spine with raised bands and lettered in gilt (wrappers lightly creased and soiled, stitching gone). Provenance: J. Wharton (contemporary ink ownership inscription to upper wrappers).

FIRST EDITION OF ONE OF SMITH'S RAREST WORKS. The fine engravings of fossils are the work of James Sowerby (1757-1822), whose British Mineralogy (see lot 26) is advertised here on the rear wrappers. The work is a highly original presentation of Smith's discovery of the correlation of particular groups of fossil types with different geological strata, with each fossil group printed on a differently coloured paper, intended to match the shade of the respective geological stratum depicted. Smith originally intended to publish the work in seven parts, but only four were published. The only copy to have sold at auction since 1975 was the Norman copy, which although complete, lacked the original wrappers (Christie's New York, Oct 29, 1998, lot 1300, $50,000; NB this was bound with Stratigraphical System, see lot 25, and was later in Maggs cat. 1307 163). Previous to this, the last copy sold was at Hodgsons in 1949. Challinor 79; Dibner Heralds 94; Eyles 14; Norman 1959; Ward & Carozzi 2074. (2)

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