75/2391 [Paleontology and geology]. Buckland, W. Geology and Mineralogy Considered with Reference to Natural Theology. Phil., Lea & Blanchard, 1841, 2nd augm. ed., 2 vols., XV,(2),14-468; VII,(1),131p., fold. handcol. geological diagram, 86 (fold.) lithogr. and engr. plates, contemp. unif. cl. w. letterpiece.

- Foxed; diagram reattached; owner's entry on title-p. Spine 2nd vol. repaired.

= Treatise VI of The Bridgewater Treatises on the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God, as Manifested in the Creation.

The naturalist Francis Henry Egerton, 8th Earl of Bridgewater, commissioned eight treatises to explore the natural world to examine William Paley's ideas of a divine designer. Buckland concluded from his reseach that the biblical flood did not correspond with his findings. "Buckland's lectures on geology and mineralogy, given in the old Ashmolean Museum, were for many years the most popular in the university. They were attended mainly by senior members of the university (...) notably, Charles Lyell, later the leading geologist of the mid-nineteenth century and Darwin's geological mentor.(...) Buckland published some forty papers and books, and the major work of his later years, his lavishly illustrated Bridgewater Treatise, Geology and Mineralogy (1836), in which he abandoned his former belief in the universal effects of the Noachian deluge, was highly influential" (Oxford Dictionary National Biography).