Elementary Geology.

Amherst: J. S. & C. Adams,, 1840. With the "Tree of Life" frontispiece First edition, with the folding plate depicting a branching diagram of plants and animals that resembles and is referred to in the text as a tree: an early if not the first representation of a "tree of life" within a geological or paleontological framework. Hitchcock was a well-known geologist, the first chairman of the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists, and later the third president of Amherst College. His Elementary Geology was a popular textbook, with at least 31 editions published between 1840 and 1859. Despite his understanding of extinction and change through the fossil record, Hitchcock is what would nowadays be referred to a as a proponent of intelligent design, and his textual descriptions explicitly disagree with the evolutionists of his time, starting with Lamarck in this edition and Darwin later on. Octavo. Original brown pebble-grain cloth, spine lettered and ruled in gilt, covers blocked in blind. With 2 hand-coloured folding plates, folding chart, and 109 text illustrations. Boards rubbed and soiled, spine edges worn with some loss at head, light foxing, two short tears to folding plate repaired: a very good copy. American Imprints 40-3179. J. David Archibald, "Edward Hitchcock's Pre-Darwinian 'Tree of Life'", Journal of the History of Biology vol. 42, no. 3, 2009.