60 The Founders of Geology LECT. 



the region from Volvic to beyond Mont Dore. The whole 

 of the summer of 1764 was taken up with this work. 

 Desmarest accompanied the geographer, who himself had 

 a large acquaintance with the mineralogy of his day. The 

 result was the production of a map which far surpassed 

 anything of the kind that had before been attempted, in 

 the accuracy, variety, and clearness of its delineations of 

 volcanic phenomena. 



At last, in the summer of 1765, after two years of 

 reflection, he communicated to the Academy of Sciences 

 at Paris the results at which he had arrived. But even 

 then he showed his earnest desire for the utmost accuracy 

 and fulness attainable. He kept back his paper from 

 publication. Next year he returned to Auvergne, after a 

 prolonged journey through the volcanic regions of Italy, 

 from the Vicentin and Padua southwards to Naples and 

 Vesuvius. In 1769 he once more revisited the volcanoes 

 of Central France, extending his excursions into the 

 Cantal. In the early part of the summer of 1771 he 

 again brought before the Academy the results of his 

 researches on the origin and nature of basalt, embodying 

 in his Memoir the mass of material which his extended 

 travel and mature reflection had enabled him to bring 

 together. But it was not until three years later, viz., in 

 1774, that his long-delayed essay at last appeared in the 

 annual volume of the Memoirs of the Academy. Life was 

 more placid in those days than it has since become. The 

 feverish haste to be famous, and the frantic struggle for 

 priority, which are now unhappily so rampant, were but 

 little known in Desmarest's days. He kept his work 

 eleven years beside him, enriching it continually with 



