An Essay on the Natural History of Guiana in South America. Containing A Description of many Curius Productions in the Animal and Vegetable Systems of that Country. Together with an Account of the Rel

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Author: Bancroft, Edward Bartholomew (1745-1821) Year: 1769 Publisher: Printed for T Bechet and P A De Hondt Place: London Description: iv+402+[ii] pages with frontispiece. Octavo (8 1/4" X 5 1/4") bound in full leather with five raised bands and red label in compartment with gilt lettering to spine. Book plate of William ("Billy") Charles de Meuron Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, 7th Earl Fitzwilliam [Sabin 3106: Wood p.220] First edition. Edward Bartholomew Bancroft was a Massachusetts born physician and chemist who became a double-agent, spying for both the United States and Great Britain while serving as secretary to the American Commission in Paris during the American Revolution. On July 14, 1763, after fleeing his apprenticeship, Bancroft left New England for the sugar-producing slave colonies of Dutch Guiana, where he became a plantation doctor. He soon expanded his practice to multiple plantations and wrote a study of the local environment. Based on observations of experiments already being performed on live eels by Dutch colonists in and around Surinam and Essequibo, Bancroft concluded that American eels and torpedo fish discharged electricity to stun their prey, rather than by imperceptibly swift mechanical action, as had previously been argued. Although he left South America in 1766, he published An Essay on the Natural History of Guiana, in South America in London 1769, where with the encouragement of Benjamin Franklin, he embarked on a career as a man of letters. Bancroft

• Binding: Hardcover

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