French

The year is 1890. The French public is eager to learn more about the new colonies that France has won in the "Scramble for Africa." Colonel Henri-Nicholas Frey addresses their curiosity by compiling this geography, which describes in vivid detail the people, places, and things on the coastal regions of West Africa, from southern Morocco to the Congo. Frey draws on his own military experience in West Africa, but his primary sources are the writings of explorers, missionaries, and travelers to the region.

Authentic early images of West Africans are rare—and quite sought after. David Boilat offers us just such a portfolio in Esquisses Sénégalaises, published in 1853. The twenty-four color plates are remarkable for their attention to details of clothing, jewelry, hair styles, skin color, and facial features. His accompanying text describes, with remarkable equanimity for his time period, pertinent customs and behaviors ranging from the admirable to the deplorable—all judged from the local point of view.

This copy of a 1784 tribute to the Montgolfier Brothers was owned by the author, Comte d'Imbert de La Platière. A tipped-in engraved portrait of the author appears at the end of the book. Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier invented the globe aérostatique, a hot air balloon made of fabric and paper, and tested its flight through summer and autumn 1783 in France. The first manned, untethered flight took place in a Montgolfier balloon piloted by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes on November 21, 1783 in Paris.

In this title, Pierre Bernard described and illustrated the history of the Jardin des Plantes, the botanical garden attached to the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris. The Jardin was more than a showplace for plants – it was (and remains) home to a zoo and several museum galleries. The text is enhanced with line illustrations, maps and color plates. The Smithsonian Libraries holds a two volume set as well as an additional copy of Part 1. All three items are available for adoption.

This short publication by a little-known botanist gave Linnaeus the diagnostic tools and the anatomical terminology for his sexual system of classifying plants. After studying botany under Tournefort at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, Vaillant (1669-1722) established a herbarium there and showed such talent and dedication that over time he rose through the ranks to become the director.

This is a thesis presented for a medical degree at the University of Montpelier by Louis Théodore Frédéric Colladon, a student of the renowned botanist Augustin-Pyramus de Candolle. As was common in European universities at the time, it was de Candolle who wrote the detailed descriptions and classifications of plants in the genus Cassia, including numerous new species, based on his own herbarium and unpublished manuscripts. The student's role was that of explicating and defending the thesis.

René Primevère Lesson, having served as surgeon/pharmacist/naturalist on the round-the-world scientific voyage of the Coquille (1822-1825), subsequently published several works in ornithology and mammalogy. Les Trochilidées is the third and last volume of his classic work on hummingbirds, and its purchase completes the Smithsonian Libraries' set. Beautifully illustrated, the plates are color-printed and finished by hand to accompany the species descriptions and a general natural history of hummingbirds. This copy survives in sheets as issued, folded but un-cut and un-bound.