in Leopold von Buck 141 



of Hutton would hardly find a few paragraphs which he 

 would wish to modify. D'Aubuisson lived into his seventy- 

 third year, and died in 1819. 



We turn now to the story of Leopold von Buch (1774- 

 1853), the most illustrious geologist that Germany has pro- 

 duced. He came of a good family, which as far back as the 

 twelfth century held an important position in the district of 

 Altmark. His father, an ambassador in the Prussian service, 

 had a family of six sons and seven daughters. Leopold, 

 the sixth son, born on 25th April 1774, passed through a 

 short course of mineralogical and chemical teaching at 

 Berlin, and then went to Freiberg at the age of sixteen, to 

 place himself under the guidance of Werner. He lived 

 mostly under that great teacher's roof for three years, 

 having for part of the time as his companion Alexander 

 von Humboldt, with whom he then began a lifelong friend- 

 ship. From Freiberg, where he drew in the pure Wernerian 

 inspiration, he proceeded to the University of Halle, and 

 later to that of Gb'ttingen. For a brief period he held an 

 appointment in the mining department of Silesia, but he 

 soon abandoned the trammels of official employment, and 

 having a sufficient competence for life, dedicated himself 

 heart and soul to independent geological research. He was 

 by far the most eminent of all the band of active propa- 

 gandists who, issuing from Freiberg, spread themselves 

 over Europe to illumine the benighted natives with the 

 true light of Wernerianism. 



Von Buch's earlier writings were conceived after the 

 strictest rules of his master's system. In his first separate 

 work, a mineralogical description of Landeck, he pro- 

 claimed, among other orthodox tenets of the Freiberg 



