BORY DE SAINT-VINCENT (Jean-Baptiste). Voyage dans les quatre principales iles des mers d'Afrique, fait par ordre du gouvernement, pendant les années neuf et dix de la République (1801 et 1802), Avec l'Histoire de la Traversée du Capitaine Baudin jusqu'au Port-Louis de l'Ile Maurice. Paris: F. Buisson, An XIII (1804). - 2 text volumes (of 3) in-8, 197 x 127, and an atlas in-4, 347 x 276: xv, 408 pp. ; (2 ff.), 431 pp. ; (2 ff.), 58 plates. Dark blue half-percaline, ornate smooth spine, speckled edges for text volumes, dark brown half-chagrin, ribbed spine (later bindings). First edition, dedicated to General Mathieu Dumas (1753-1837), of the Voyage dans les quatre principales îles des mers d'Afrique, written by Jean-Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent (1778-1846). This account retraces his journey to the Mascarene Islands, as part of the Baudin expedition, which left Le Havre in October 1800 for New Holland. Bory de Saint-Vincent gives a detailed account of agriculture, natural history, geography and commercial considerations, following the expedition's route from the Canary Islands to the Île de France, via Tenerife. He also gives an in-depth study of the Guanches, the indigenous people of the Canary Islands, and describes the marine and plant species encountered during the voyage. Bory de Saint-Vincent was the first to describe several species, such as the snake escolar (Gempylus serpens), caught off West Africa on November 23, 1800, and Monophora noctiluca, Biphore biparti and Carinaria fragilis, caught between December 1800 and February 1801. In Tenerife, he also described the Lobelia broussonetia, thus enriching the naturalist knowledge of the time. Returning to France on July 11, 1802, he published his Essais sur les îles Fortunées (Canary Islands), for which he was elected correspondent to the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in 1803, then to the Institut de France in 1808. In 1804, he published Voyage dans les quatre principales îles des mers d'Afrique, the printing of which was supervised by the young Léon Dufour (1780-1865), the future great physician and botanist. An incomplete copy of volume 3, but complete with the atlas comprising 3 maps and 55 plates of views, scenes, marine animals and plants, all engraved in intaglio after drawings by the author for the maps, views and fauna, by painter Jean-Joseph Patu de Rosemond (1767-1818) for the scenes, and by botanist Pierre-Antoine Poiteau (1766-1854) for the plants. The maps show the African seas, the islands of France and Reunion, and Reunion Island. The last plate, representing a "Bird's-eye view of the volcano on Reunion Island", is in color. Wear to the covers of all three volumes; wear rubbing to the atlas. Some foxing. Soiling to some plates.