138 The Founders of Geology LECT. 



Jean FranQois D'Aubuisson de Voisins (1*769-1819) was 

 born in the south of France on 16th April 1769. After 

 receiving his early education in his own country, he spent 

 some years as a diligent student at the Mining School of 

 Freiberg. For four consecutive years, he tells us, he was 

 in the most favourable circumstances for mastering the 

 Wernerian doctrines, inasmuch as the illustrious teacher 

 honoured him with particular attention, and in the course 

 of many conversations unfolded to him the principles of his 

 science, and traced for him the path that would lead him to 

 the establishment of a true geognosy. 1 While still pursuing 

 his studies in Saxony, D'Aubuisson took up the question 

 of the basalts of that kingdom, travelled over all their 

 scattered hills, and at last wrote a treatise upon them, 

 which appeared in Paris in 1803. In this little volume 

 of 170 pages the Wernerian doctrine as to the origin of 

 basalt is not only accepted but treated as if it were incon- 

 testable. In one passage, indeed, the author guards him- 

 self by saying that his conclusions have reference only to 

 the basalts which he himself has seen, and that if some 

 day he can visit Auvergne and the Vivarais, he perhaps 

 may be better able to discuss the question more generally, 

 and to appreciate what has been written on the other side. 2 

 His essay was presented to the Institute of Sciences, and 

 the two referees, Haiiy and Eamond, to whom it was 

 submitted, appended to their favourable report on it a 

 most judicious piece of advice to the young author. " A 

 subject," they say, " where the analogies already hazarded 

 have led to more than one mistake, demands the utmost 



1 Traittde G&gnosie (1819), vol. i. preface, p. xv. 

 2 Mimoire sur Us Basaltes de la Saxe, Paris 1803, pp. 97, 100, 101. ' 



