Ehrenberg’s Discoveries—Noatices of Eminent Men. 123 
aided by a configuration of the surface very different from the 
present. ‘The striking and vivid pictures which Montlosier draws 
of such occurrences, are to the present day singularly instructing 
and convincing to those who look at that region with the geolo- 
gist’s eye. After publishing this essay, M. Montlosier, a man of 
varied and commanding talents, became involved in the political 
struggles of his time, and was an active member of the National 
Assembly, to which he was sent as Deputy of the Noblesse of 
Auvergne. In his place there he resisted in vain the proposals 
for the spoliation of the clergy; and one speech of his on this 
Subject was very celebrated. After witnessing some of the chan- 
ges which his unhappy country had then to suffer, he became an 
exile, and resided in London, where for some years he was the 
editor of the Courier Francais, a royalist journal. Under the 
empire, he returned to France, and was employed in the Foreign 
Office of the Ministry, but recovered little of his property except 
@ portion of a mountain, which was too ungrateful a soil to find 
another purchaser. The situation however could not but be con- 
genial to his geological feelings; for his habitation was in the ex- 
tinet crater of the Puys de Vaches. The traveller, in approaching 
the door of the philosopher of Randane, had to wade through sco- 
tie and ashes; and from the deep basin in which his house stood, 
4 torrent of lava, still rugged and covered with cinders, has poured 
down the valley, and at the distance of a league, has formed a 
dike and barred up the waters which form the lake of Aidat Pet 
4 Spot celebrated by Sidonius Apollinaris, Bishop of Clermont in 
the fifth century, as the seat of his own beautiful residence, under 
the name of Avitacus. It is curious to remark that Sidonius does 
hot overlook the resemblance between his own mountain and 
Vesuvius: 
“ ZEmula Baiano tolluntur culmina cono, 
Parque cothurnato vertice fulget apex.” 
In this most appropriate abode M. de Montlosier was, in his old 
48e, visited at different times by several distinguished English 
8eologists, some of whom are now present ; and invariably de- 
lighted them with his unfading interest in the geology of his own 
fegion, his hospitable reception, and I may add, his lofty and vig- 
Srous Presence, according well with his frank and chivalrous de- 
meanor. His ardor of character had shown itself in early age: 
From my first youth,” thus his Essay opens, “I occupied my- 
