Paris: De L’Imprinere Royale, 1738. First edition. 8vo. Engraved folding map and 9 folded plates, marginal browning and spotting. Contemporary calf, spine in 6 compartments with 5 raised bands, gilt lettering in one, others gilt, light splitting along joints with some touch-ups, corners rubbed; book-plate of John Couch Adams (1819-1892), noted British astronomer and mathematician. Babson 94; Norman 1458.

First edition. Along with Voltaire, Maupertuis was one of Newton's earliest proponents in France. In 1735, Maupertuis, Clairaut, Le Monnier, Camus and the Abbé Outhier travelled to Lapland to prove the Newtonian hypothesis that the earth was flattened at the poles by determining the length of a degree on the meridian at the North Pole and comparing it with the length of degrees at other points on the meridian. The results of their investigation, which built on the work of Cassini de Thury, were published in this work.