Georges Louis Leclerc

GEORGES-LOUIS LECLERC, COUNT OF BUFFON (Montbard, France, 1707-Paris,1788).
"General and particular natural history". 13 volumes.
Printer: Vicente Frossart y Compañía. Madrid, 1844.
In good condition with light rust marks.
Measurements: 25 x 19 x 3.5 cm (x13).
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Count de Buffon was a French naturalist, mathematician and cosmologist. He held the position of intendant (director) at the Jardin du Roi, now called Jardin des plantes. Buffon's works influenced the next two generations of naturalists, including two prominent French scientists, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Georges Cuvier. Buffon published thirty-six quarto volumes of his Histoire Naturelle during his lifetime, and additional volumes based on his notes and research were published in the two decades following his death. Ernst Mayr wrote that "Buffon was truly the father of all natural history thought in the second half of the eighteenth century." Although he was one of the first naturalists to recognize ecological succession, the theology committee of the University of Paris forced him to retract his theories on geological history and animal evolution because they contradicted the biblical account of Creation.