142 The Founders of Geology LECT. 



school, his adhesion to the aqueous origin of basalt, collected 

 all the instances he could find of organic remains in that 

 rock, and boldly affirmed that " it cannot be denied that 

 Neptunism opens up to the spirit of observation a far 

 wider field than does the volcanic theory." 1 



In the year 1797 Von Buch had his first view of the 

 Alps, and in the following year began his more distant 

 journeys, passing into Austria, and thence into Italy, where 

 he spent a considerable time among the volcanic districts. 

 In 1802 he published the first of two volumes descriptive 

 of these early travels. It was appropriately dedicated to 

 Werner, and expressed his continued adhesion to the 

 Wernerian faith. " Every country and every district," he 

 remarks, " where basalt is found furnishes evidence directly 

 opposed to all idea that this remarkable rock has been 

 erupted in a molten condition, or still more that each 

 basalt hill marks the site of a volcano." 2 Before the 

 second volume appeared, the writer of that sentence had an 

 opportunity of visiting Auvergne. His conversion there 

 appears to have been as rapid as that of D'Aubuisson, but 

 his announcement of it was much more sensational. It 

 was in the spring of 1802 that he went to Central France, 

 but owing to various accidents the second volume of his 

 travels did not appear until the year 1809. 3 He had made 



1 Gesammelte Schriften, vol. i. p. 68. 



2 Geognostische Bedbachtungen auf Reisen durch Deutschland und Italien, 

 Berlin, i. (1802), p. 126. It is a curious fact that A. von Humboldt also 

 began his geological career among the basalts of Germany, and published 

 in 1790 a little tract of 126 pages, entitled Mineralogisclie Bedbachtungen 

 uber einige Basalte am Rhein. 



3 The descriptions of Auvergne are contained in an Appendix to vol. ii. , 

 consisting of Mineralogische Briefe aus Auvergne an Herrn Geh. Ober- 

 Bergrath Karsten, p. 227 (1809). 



