Life ef Defauffure. ^ 2;^ 



His firft paflion Was for botany. A varied foil, producing numerous different plants, in- 

 vited the inhabitant of the borders of the Leman lake to cultivate this agreeable fcience. 

 This tafte of DefaufTure led him to form a connei5tlon with the great Haller. He paid him 

 a vifit in 1764, during his retirement at Bex, and gives an account in his travels of his ad- 

 miration for this furpri/.ing man, who excelled in all the natural fciences. DefaufTure was 

 flillmore excited to ftudy the vegetable kingdom by his connedlions with Charles Bonnet, 

 who had married his aunt, and who foon perceived the value of his nephew's increafing ta- 

 lents. Bonnet was then employed on the leaves. DefaufTure alfo ftudied thefe organs of ve- 

 getables, and publiflied the refuit of his enquiries under the title of " Obfervations on the 

 Bark of Leaves." This little work, which appeared foon after the year 1760, contains 

 fome new obfervations on the epidermis of leaves, and in particular on the miliary glands 

 which cover them *. 



About this time the place of profefTor ofphllofophy became vacant. DefaufTure, then juft 

 jnhis twenty-firfV year, obtained it. Experience proves, that if very early recompences ex- 

 tinguifli the zeal of thofe who exert themfelves merely .*br the fake of reward, on the con- 

 trary they increafe the induflry of thofe who are in fearch of truth. At that time the two 

 profefTors of philofophy taught by turns natural philofophy and logic. DefaufTure filled thefe 

 two offices with equal fuccefs. He gave a pradtical, we may fay an experimental, turn to 

 the fcience of logic. His courfe, which began with the fludy of the fenfes, in order to ar- 

 rive at thofe general laws of the underflanding, fhewed that he was even then a clofe ob- 

 fcrver of nature. 



Natural philofophy being the objefl: of his attachment, led him to fludy chemiftry and mine- 

 ralogy ; and foon afterwards he recommenced his travels in the mountains, not only to examine 

 the plants, but to obferve the mountains themfelves, whether he confidered their compofition or 

 the difpofition of their mafTes. Geology, a fcience then fcarcely known, gave a charm to his nu- 

 merous walks in the Alps. Here it was that he difcovered himfelf to be a truly great philofopher. 

 During the fifteen or twenty firft years of his profefTorfhip he was employed in performing 

 the duties of his office, and in furveying the mountains in the neighbourhood of Geneva. 

 He extended his excurfions on one fide as far as the banks of the Rhine, and on the other tq 

 Piedmont. About this time he made a journey into Auvergne, to examine the extinft vol- 

 canoes; and another to Paris, Holland, and England, and afterwards to Sicily. Thefe 

 voyages were not merely excurfions from one place to another. They had only one object, 

 namely, the ftudy of rfature. He never travelled without being provided with every inftrument 

 that might be ufeful to him ; and always before he fet out, he fketched the plan of the ex- 

 periments and obfervations he intended to make. He often mentions in his works, that he • 

 found this method of great utility to him. 



In 1 779 he publifhed the firft volume of his Travels in the Alps. We there find a com- 

 plete defcription of the environs of Geneva, and an cxcurfion to Chamouni, a villaire at the 



• He refunied this fubjedl eighteen monthi before his death. 



O 2 iott 



