[EARTH & THE SOLAR SYSTEM & LIFE] Harekât-i kevniye yahud tahavvülât-i arziye [i.e., Motions of the formation or the territorial phases]

NAZMÎ, HÂSIM (Turkish geographer, educator, member of 'Maarif Encümeni'), (ca. 1900).

Hursid Matbaasi, Istanbul, AH 1318 = [1900].

Original illustrated wrappers. Cr. 8vo. (20 x 14 cm). In Ottoman script (Old Turkish with Arabic letters). 54 p., b/w plates. Lacking covers, minuscule chippings on extremities, and slight marginal foxing. Else, a fair copy.

First and only edition of this rare Ottoman book including a short but complete early description of the formation of life on the Earth and the Solar System by a Turkish geographer, educator, and member of the Ottoman Education Council.

In the book, the author describes the formation of the Earth with seas and lands formed in three major geographical times and the major geological events based on the geological time scale, a system of chronological measurement based on the study of the planet's rock layers (stratigraphy). The next chapter includes the Solar System and the planets forming them (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) and their compositions and structures. Earth formed about 4.54 billion years ago by accretion from the solar nebula, a disk-shaped mass of dust and gas left over from the formation of the Sun, which also created the rest of the Solar System. Nazmi describes 309 newly discovered planets until his time, and he acquaints more than 500 stars that rotate around the Sun. In the last chapter, a detailed account of the structure and composition of the Moon formed soon afterward, possibly because of the impact of a planetoid on the Earth. (Source: History of geographical literature during the Ottoman period, Edited by Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu).

As of March 2024, we could not trace any copies in OCLC. Özege 6915.; TBTK 12959.; MÇOB 164.