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GUILLET, Peter
Timber Merchant's Guide. Also a Table, whereby, at one view, may be seen the solid and superficial measure of any square or unequal Hewed Logs or Plank, from one to forty-seven inches. Also, Plates representing the Figures of the principle pieces of timber, used in building a seventy-four Gun Ship of the Line, in standing trees
Baltimore: John D. Toy for James Lovegrove, 1823. Octavo (8 3/8 x 5 1/2 inches). 24pp., [89]pp. of letterpress tables. 30 hand-coloured lithographic plates by Henry Stone after Guillet. Expertly bound in tan quarter calf to style, old paper boards, spine simply gilt in six compartments, lettered in the 2nd.
The second book printed in America to be illustrated by lithographs and an important record of the use of timber in ship building.
A remarkable and important book, illustrated with thirty hand-coloured lithographic plates, each of which illustrates the most economic method of using various tree types to provide the variously shaped and stressed pieces of timber needed in the building of a ship. This is the second book printed in America to be illustrated with lithographs, preceded only by J.E. Smith's Grammar of Botany. The plates were produced by Henry Stone, 'one of the earliest and most elusive of all the lithographers' (Peters) and the first lithographer to practice in Baltimore. The author begins the book with an impassioned plea for federal government intervention in the conservation of the forests as a national resource: `When we consider the progressive devastations committed upon the vast forests of this country - that, if the present destructive course be pursued, they must in time entirely disappear - the necessity of taking prohibitory measures for their preservation, must be obvious to every man of intelligence. It is necessary, not only to make the best use possible of the timber we possess, but also to preserve resources for the future... Let commissioners or foresters be appointed to superintend the concerns of the forests, whose duty should be to attend to their preservation... our expansive and seemingly inexhaustible forests, will ere long be ruined; the foregoing anticipated evils will soon be realized, unless preventive measures are immediately taken by the government.'
American Imprints 12738; Bennett, American Color Plate Books, p. 67; Bradley Bibliography IV p.222; Peters, America on Stone, p.376. Not in Raphael An Oak Spring Sylva; Rink.
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#2893 $5,000.00 
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© 2002-2005 Donald A. Heald
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