84 The Founders of Geology LECT. 



its level had never been more than 100 fathoms higher 

 than at present, and he supposed that the elevation of the 

 mountains had been caused by commotions of the globe. 1 



We now pass from the Ural chain which served Pallas 

 as his type of mountain-structure to another and more 

 famous group of mountains, where, during the same period, 

 another not less zealous explorer was at work. The 

 labours of De Saussure among the Alps mark an epoch, 

 not only in the investigation of the history of the globe, 

 but in the relations of civilized mankind to the mountains 

 which diversify the surface of the land. 



Up till towards the end of last century mountain- 

 scenery was usually associated in men's minds with ideas 

 of horror, danger, and repulsion. Every reader of English 

 literature will remember passages, alike among poets and 

 prose-writers, wherein the strongest abhorrence is ex- 

 pressed for the high, rugged and desolate regions of the 

 earth. These tracts, which had in themselves no attractions, 

 were generally looked upon as best seen from a distance, 

 and not to be entered or traversed save on the direst 

 compulsion. 



This prejudice, which we all now laugh at, was first broken 

 down by the scientific researches of Horace-Benedict de 

 Saussure (1740-1799), from which we may date the rise of 

 the modern spirit of mountaineering. He it was who first 

 taught the infinite charm and variety of mountain-scenery, 

 the endless multiplicity of natural phenomena there to be 

 seen, and the enthusiasm which the mountain-world will 



1 See the summary of Pallas's views given by D'Archiac in his Cours 

 de PaUontologie Stratigraphique, p. 159, 1862. For a fuller exposition 

 consult Journal de Physique, xiii. (1779), pp. 329-350. 



