Biographical Notice of Leopold Pilla^ the Geologist. 69 



study of the extinct volcano of Rocca Monfina,* in the Cam- 

 pania, illustrated the theory of craters de soulevement, and 

 enriched it with facts of the highest importance. 



With a mind at once philosophical and cultivated, he was 

 able to generalise and describe, to unite erudition with good 

 taste, and to treat questions of deepest science with that 

 grace and picturesqueness of style, which renders them po- 

 pular without detracting from their accuracy. His love for 

 geology amounted to enthusiasm ; he was therefore so zeal- 

 ous in propagating his views, that certain jealous minds could 

 not pardon him, and led him to atone for his fault, by a vo- 

 luntary exile. The apostle of the science, he likewise was 

 its martyr ; thus nothing was wanting to his fame. It is the 

 privilege of men of genius to be persecuted. Obliged to 

 yield to the storm, Pilla left Naples, but by his writings he 

 belonged to Italy at large ; and the unanimous acclamation 

 which greeted him in the chair formerly occupied by Galileo, 

 conferred on him by the liberality of the Grand Duke of 

 Tuscany, formed at once his triumph and revenge. 



Besides the works mentioned, we owe to him a Mineralo- 

 gical Treatise on Rocks ;t an Introduction to the Study of 

 Mineralogy 4 and a Geological Itinerary from Naples to 

 Vienna. § Thus, by approving the new productions which 

 his activity produced, and which caused him to be better ap- 

 preciated by the nation which had adopted him, the Tuscans 

 had only to sanction the judgment they had already given of 

 our savant, founded on his reputation and works. 



Pilla left his heart at Naples. That city contained all the 

 objects of his affections — a father, who had guided his first 

 attempts in the field of science, and his family — a classical soil 

 which had revealed to him the secret of its revolutions, a ma- 

 jestic landscape, which he could not find among the monoto- 

 nous plains of Pisa, and above all his own Vesuvius. It was 



* Memoires de la Soci6t6 Geologique de Prance, t. i., 2Me serie. 

 t Trattato mineralogico delle Roccie, Napoli. 

 X lutroduzione alio studio della geologia, Napoli. 



§ Osservazioni Geologiche che si possono fare lungo la strads da Na2)oli a 

 Vienna. 



