46 The Founders of Geology LECT. i 



an indefatigable and accurate observer who, gifted with a 

 keen eye, well-trained powers of investigation, and much 

 originality of mind, opened up new paths in a number of 

 fields which have since been fruitfully cultivated, but 

 who rigidly abstained from theory or speculation. In 

 geology, he deserves to be specially remembered as the 

 first to construct, however imperfectly, geological maps, 

 the first to make known the existence of extinct vol- 

 canoes in Central France, and one of the first to see the 

 value of organic remains as geological monuments, and to 

 prepare detailed descriptions and figures of them. To 

 him also are due some of the earliest luminous sugges- 

 tions on the denudation of the land by the atmospheric 

 and marine agents. "By his minute and laborious re- 

 searches he did more to advance the true theory of the 

 earth (on which, however, he never allowed himself to 

 hazard a single conjecture) than the philosophers who have 

 racked their brains to devise those brilliant hypotheses, 

 the phantoms of a moment, which the light of truth soon 

 remands into eternal oblivion." * 



1 Condorcet's filoge. 



