18S2.J '^-'J- [Lesley. 



scliaft, inflamed with vague liopesof a repetition of the French revolution, 

 the destruction of irresponsible princedoms, and the liberation and unifica- 

 tion of the Fatherland. Vogt fled to Switzerland. Desor's brother, after 

 a short stay in Paris, settled also in Switzerland, at Neufchatel, although 

 that canton was an appanage of Prussia, and its inhabitants spoke French 

 and German indifferently. But Desor himself remained in Paris from 1832 

 onwards until his brotlier's marriage to a wealthy lady, M'lle de Pierre, 

 in B6Ie-6ver-Colombier, proved too strong an attraction, and he became a 

 Swiss, not only in residence, but in heart and soul and character, and re- 

 mained a Swiss to the last day of his life. 



In Paris he tried at first to support himself b}' translating, for a French 

 publisher, Ritier's Erdkunde. He was also employed by Dr. Hahnemann 

 as his private secretary. T have "heard him aflirm of his own knoAvledge 

 that the transfer of simple liomceopathy on to the trancendental ground of 

 infinitesimal doses, with correspondingly high powers, was the work of 

 Madame Hahnemann ; her husband having nothing to do with it. 



In Paris, Desor studied geology under Elie de Beaumont who, then 34 

 years old, had become Professor of Geology in the College of France in 

 1832 the year of Desor's expatriation. 



This year of 1832 is famous in the history of our science, for it marks 

 best the date of the labors of Sedgewick and Murchison in England and 

 Wales. It was also tlie year of the cholera. In 1833 Elie de Beaumont 

 was made Chief Engineer of Mines ; and wii^h Dufrenoy commenced the 

 preparation of the great geological map of France, published in 1841. His 

 Mountain Systems did not appear until 1852 ; but during the interval of 20 

 years he was elaborating that masterpiece of geological genius in lectures 

 which raised him to the pinnacle on which he stood until his death as the 

 greatest living geologist, while it overthrew the factitious reputation of 

 his great popular rival Leopold von Buch. 



Desor, however, was not much influenced by the special views of his 

 great master regarding the structure of the earth, and was too much in- 

 fluenced by the vague notions of the Swiss geologist Thurman, who tried 

 to apply a modification of Von Buch's elevation theory to the anticlinals 

 of the Jura. Nor is it strange that Desor, only 21 years old, sliould not 

 have been more influenced by Elie de Beaumont's peculiar structural 

 theories. It cannot be otherwise, however, than that his subsequent de- 

 votion to geology was born in him by the teaching of his great master. 

 In after years he threw himself with ardor into orographic research ; but it 

 ■was always more practical than speculative ; and the extensive orographic 

 studies which he continued at intervals until his death were probably 

 mainly due to his experiences on the glacier of the Aar. His memoirs on 

 the Massifs of the Alps are inspired by quite a different motive from that 

 which impelled Elie de Beaumont to the construction of his crystalline 

 globe. For Desor the structure of valleys through which descended his 

 glaciers was the main thing ! Tlie surface, and not the underground, held 



