1755 Lisbon earthquake: Early treatise on physical causes. No U.S. copies.

[Earthquakes] / Francisco Martinez Molès. Dissertacion physica: origen y formacion del terremoto, padecido el dia primero de noviembre de 1755. Las causas, que lo produxeron, y las que a todos los producen. Presagios, que antecedentemente anuncian este temible Metheoro, y explicacion de todas las Questiones que sobre tan estraño phenomeno pueden hacerse. En Madrid: En la Imprenta de Juan de San Martin, 1755. 4to [19.1 x 14.0], [6] ff., 31 pp., [1] p. blank verso, with woodcut head-piece and initial. Disbound apparently from a composite volume, retaining original stab-stitch holes. Well preserved.

Very rare (no U.S. copies) first and only edition of this early Spanish treatise on the Lisbon earthquake of 1 November 1755. This “Physical Dissertation,” written by Francisco Martinez Molés, a professor of theology at Alcalá, appeared in late December 1755.

Despite his clerical background, Francisco Martinez Molés focuses almost entirely on ‘physics,’ and unlike many early accounts, he does not dwell on eyewitness reports of casualties or destruction of property. He considers fire, air and water to be the potential causes of the earthquake. He acknowledges that rocks rubbing together—like “Los mas rudos Americanos” rubbing two sticks together to make fire (p. 8)—is a possible cause, and he is familiar with Enlightenment discoveries of barometry, etc. (Boyle, Homberg, Nollet, etc.), but he prefers water as the likely culprit for the earthquake.

Cited are earthquakes real and imagined from across the globe, e.g., Plato’s Atlantis, Vesuvius, Etna, Hekla in Iceland, earthquakes in Sumatra, Philippines, and Japan.

OCLC and KVK locate no U.S. copies of this title, which is also rare in European census.

* Palau y Dulcet (2nd ed.), no. 155336.