in Von Buck in Auvergne 145 



beliefs he had imbibed at Freiberg. He could not bring 

 himself to admit that all that his master had taught him 

 as to the origin of basalt, all that he had himself so carefully 

 noted down from his extended journeys in Germany, was 

 radically wrong. He, no doubt, felt that it was not merely 

 a question of the mode of origin of a single kind of stone. 

 The whole doctrine of the chemical precipitation of the 

 rocks of the earth's crust was at stake. If he surrendered 

 it at one point, where was he to stop ? We cannot wonder, 

 therefore, that he still refused to permit himself to question 

 the truth of the Wernerian faith in so far as the old basalts 

 of Saxony and Silesia were concerned. He comforted 

 himself with the belief that they at least, with all their 

 associated sedimentary strata, must have been deposited 

 by water. 



But when he turns round again to the clear evidence 

 displayed in Central France, he asks, " Is it the fault of 

 the geologist in Auvergne that the arguments which are 

 powerful in Germany have no effect on him here, even 

 though he does not dispute them ? May he not be allowed 

 in retort to ask whether the principles which so obviously 

 arise from the phenomena in Central France are not also 

 applicable to the German basalts ? At all events, he may 

 contend, we see very little connection between these basalts 

 and ours as regards relations of structure. Would you 

 have us give up our convictions as to the principles which 

 give grandeur, consistency, and simplicity to the explana- 

 tion of our Auvergne mountains, and adopt views founded 

 on relations which are not to be seen here ? " l 



Well might Von Buch conclude by saying that he 



1 Op. dt. p. 310. 

 L 



