GSV / SELWYN, A. R. C. Geological Survey of Victoria. Mining and Geological Department, Melbourne, ca. 1864. 510 x 765 mm. Lithographié en couleurs. Large oblong folio atlas illustrated with 54 color lithographed maps printed on a mechanical steam lithographic press (Lithographic Steam Printing Executed by the Geological Survey Department, at the Gov.t Printing Office, Melbourne), mounted on thick paper; with one large folding linen-backed map in color (114 × 170 cm), and 8 unbound maps (46 × 71 cm) inserted in a pocket affixed to the inside front cover. Half green grained leather with corners. Binding worn, upper joint split, spine damaged. Atlas containing all the geological maps of the province of Victoria (Australia), which was exhibited at the Paris Universal Exposition of 1867 under the title “Geological Survey of Victoria,” and which was presented to the Geological Society of France by the director of the Corps of Geological Engineers, Mr. Alfred R. C. Selwyn, of Melbourne. The portfolio first contains a large general geological map of the entire province of Victoria, at the scale of 8 miles per inch, providing an overview of the main geological divisions of this vast country; then there is an index map indicating the progress made up to April 30, 1864; and finally, 51 sheets of the map, at the considerable scale of two inches per mile. Several of the sheets include geological cross-sections, and all contain detailed explanations on geology and mining. "This colony, whose name did not even exist twenty years ago, and which was at first known only from a few travelers’ accounts around the world as a place of exile for convicts, under the name of Port Phillip, and which today still has fewer than 700,000 inhabitants; this antipodean country," adds Mr. Marcou, "maintains a staff of fifteen geological or mining engineers, at an annual cost of one hundred to one hundred and twenty thousand francs, with an entire establishment of museums, courses, workshops for map draftsmen, and the publication of reports, statistics, and mineral assays." [Jules Marcou]. Jules Marcou: Franco-American geologist and cartographer, president of the Geological Society of France in 1865. Alfred Richard Cecil Selwyn (26 July 1824 – 19 October 1902) was a British geologist and public servant, director of the Geological Survey of Victoria from 1852 to 1869. In 1852 the Colonial Office appointed Selwyn director of the Geological Survey of the recently founded colony of Victoria, where he built up an excellent staff including Richard Daintree, C. D. H. Aplin, Charles Smith Wilkinson, Reginald Murray, Edward John Dunn, Henry Yorke Lyell Brown and Robert Etheridge, Junior, with Sir Frederick McCoy as palaeontologist. He was a strict disciplinarian and from the beginning set a very high standard of work in his department. During his 17 years as director, over 60 geological maps were issued which were among the best of their period: they were models of accuracy which established a tradition of geological mapping in Australia. Selwyn was well qualified to analyse the Silurian strata. He was also responsible for several reports on the geology of Victoria and added much to the knowledge of gold-bearing rocks. Selwyn discovered the Caledonian goldfield near Melbourne in 1854 and in the following year reported on coal seams in Tasmania, until in 1869 the Colonial Legislature brought the Survey to an abrupt termination on economic grounds.