Lesley.] O^O j-jHay 19, 



In one of the obituary sketches of Desor (Easier Nachrichten), written 

 perliaps by Desor's very steadfast friend Prof. Riitimeyer, I find the fol- 

 lowing paragraph : 



"The burghers of Fonts honored Desor with tlie burger-right, and sent 

 him, alternately with Nciraigue and Neufchatel (as soon as the radicals 

 got the majority in Neufchatel), as member to the Grand Council, which 

 once chose him its President. For many years Desor was a member also of 

 the Stiiiiderath, and of the Nationalrath (or Swiss Parliament), and one 

 of its most distinguished members. Perhaps it would have been better 

 for Desor the investigator had he devoted less of his time to politics ; nor 

 did politics always bring sweet fruits to Desor the man. For ever since he 

 fell away from his old comi-ades on the question of the repurchase of the 

 Jura railway, and engaged himself personally in an endless newspaper war, 

 which became ever more and more bitter and thankless, his health began 

 to fail, and five years ago the symptoms appeared of that serious malady 

 Avhich led him inevitably to his grave." 



The last three years Desor was sent by his physicians to spend the 

 winters in Nice, where he became an active member of two scientific socie- 

 ties. He thus came to preside at the discovery of the fossil man of Ca- 

 rabacel which produced so great a sensation in the geological world. He 

 directed also the researches made in the grotto of Peymanade, discovered 

 by M. Bottin de St. Vallier. He managed in spite his sufferings to as- 

 cend considerable heights, and discovered satisfactory proof of the former 

 existence of glaciers descending the southern slope to the shore of the 

 Mediterranean. His letters to me on that subject display all the pleas- 

 ure and zeal of a boy. His little maps and sections of the structure of the 

 Ligurean coast are perfectly fresh. 



Last February I went from Paris to Nice to see Desor for as I feared 

 the last time, and found him extremely feeble and full of pain ; but I had 

 so often seen him thus in former years that I dreaded no immediate dan- 

 ger. In our conversations he dwelt with lively interest on a plan which he 

 was organizing to observe the temperature along the summits of the Pyre- 

 nees, and at the level of the plain. He went over again the old story of the 

 Fohn or Alpine snow devouring south wind, in connection with the estab- 

 lishment of high winter sanataria for invalids in the Tyrol ; and also in 

 connection with the observed winter temperature observed on the Puy de 

 Dome relatively higher than on the plain at Clermont-Ferrand. He ear- 

 nestly demanded data from the American stations to help discover the 

 law, if it were one. 



In a few days Desor was no more. The lamp that burned so brightly 

 flickered a moment, and went out. All research was at an end. One of 

 the sweetest, simplest, most honest, most aflectionate, most robust and 

 energetic, most independent natures that ever acquired fame abroad and 

 inspired respect at home, suddenly ceased to sufler and ceased to think. 

 Science had lost another star, Switzerland a sturdy champion of demo- 

 cratic liberty, and many of us a rare friend who cannot by any means be 

 replaced. 



