Baron Cuvier's Historical Eloge of Baron Ramond. 13 



thrown into this small town, formed an interesting audience. 

 The same eloquence which distinguished him in the world, and 

 in the tribune animated him in the chair. It particularly in- 

 spired him when he traversed with his pupils those fine moun- 

 tains whose wonders he expounded to them ; and when by 

 their assistance he explored them with new care, not even a 

 stone escaped him, and not even a plant was neglected. He 

 ascended thirty-five times the Pic du Midi of Bareges ; and 

 having failed in two trials in 1797, to ascend the peak called 

 Mont Perdu, the highest of the chain, he resumed, and suc- 

 ceeded in the attempt in 1 802. It was from this kind of hfe 

 that a contemporary poet, in a laudatory poem, denominated 

 him un savant chamois. 



To these repeated journeys we owe the third work of M. 

 Ramond, which, under the too limited title of Voyage au 

 Mont-Perdu, * presents in reality a general theory of the 

 chain of the Pyrenees, equally new and important for geology. 



By an arrangement opposite to that which is observed in all 

 other great chains, the flanks of these mountains present very 

 few shells : it is only the summits which abound with the 

 debris of organized bodies, and hence numerous objections 

 had been drawn against the laws which Pallas and Saus- 

 sure had recognized in the structure of mountains. M, 

 Ramond found indeed calcareous beds of shells on the summit 

 of the chain ; but a lucky observation showed him that the 

 strata of these calcareous beds of shells dipped to the south, 

 and in an ulterior survey he discovered the schists and the gra- 

 nites which run beneath the calcareous strata. Returning 

 farther to the north he saw these schists and granites arranged 

 in parallel lines, but inferior to the great crest. Farther north 

 still he again found the calcareous strata resting in parallel 

 lines on the granites and schists ; but these last lines were the 

 least elevated of all. Henceforth order was, in his opinion, 

 again established. The granite forms, as every where else, the 

 axis of the chain ; but there is a singular inequality of level 



* Voyage au Mont-Perdu, et dans la partie adjacente de Hautes Py- 

 renees, par M. Ramond. Paris, Belin, 1801, 1 vol. 8vo; et Voyage au 

 Sommet du Monte-Perdu, extrait diU Journal des Mines. Bossange, 1803, 

 broch. in 8vo. 



