VOLTERRA, Vito (1860-1940) and Giuseppe Peano (1858-1932), Six papers in four parts, 1895, on the Theory of Polar Wandering, all in Atti della R. Accademia delle Scienze di Torino. These include: “Sopra lo spostamento del polo sulla terra” (30 No. 12 pp. 515-523, May 1895); “Sul moto del polo terrestre”, 30 No. 15 pp. 845-852, June 1895) by Giuseppe Peano AND “Sulla Teoria dei moti del Polo Terrestre” 30 No. 6 pp. 167-172, February 1895); “Sui moti periodici del polo terrestre” 30 No. 12 pp. 815-816, May 1895); “Sulla Teoria dei moti del Pollo nella Ipotesti della Plasticita Terrestre” 30 No. 14 pp. 461-474, June 1895) and “Osservazioni sulla mia Nota: ‘Sui moti periodici del polo terrestre’ ” 30 No. 15 pp. 815-816, June 1895), all by Vito Volterra. The four issues are in their original wrappers in Very Good condition and are housed in a beautiful custom clamshell box. $1250

“Polar wandering is the shifting of the Earth’s axis of rotation over time, a phenomenon associated with continental drift. Polar wandering was first proposed by the Compte de Buffon, but Italian mathematicians Guiseppe Peano and Vito Volterra were the first two scientists to study it rigorously, with their first reports appearing in 1895 in these four issues of the Proceedings of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Turin. Peano’s papers are titled: “Concerning the movement of the Earth’s poles” and “On the movement of the Earth’s pole.” Volterra’s papers are titled: “On the Theory of the Earth”s Polar motions;” “On the periodic motions of the earth’s pole;” “On the theory of the motions of the poles in the hypothesis of Terrestrial Plasticity;” and “Observations on my Note: ‘On the periodic motions of the earth’s pole’.”

Arthur A. Meyerhoff, et al,, Surge Tectonics: A New Hypothesis of Global Geodynamics (Kluwer, 1996), pointing out that the Buffon idea was generally adrift in his massive 44-volume work, and only gained popularity with the work of Peano and Volerra.