198 The Founders of Geology LECT. 



troversialists, were providing a large body of material which 

 eventually proved of great service in the establishment of a 

 sound geology. Chief among them were those who devoted 

 themselves with such ardour to the study of the Italian 

 volcanoes. One of the most active and interesting of them 

 was the Frenchman Dolomieu (1*750-1801), who died at 

 the early age of fifty-one, after a strangely eventful life. He 

 travelled much and wrote largely, specially devoting his 

 attention to the active and extinct volcanoes of the Medi- 

 terranean. As far back as 1783 he published a little 

 volume on the Lipari Isles. Afterwards he followed 

 Desmarest in describing the old volcanoes of Auvergne. 1 

 Though his theoretical views were not always sound, he 

 was a careful and indefatigable observer, and provided 

 copious material towards the establishment of the prin- 

 ciples of geology. To him more than perhaps to any of 

 his contemporaries is science indebted for recognizing and 

 enforcing the connection of volcanoes with the internal 

 heat of the globe. 



Faujas da St. Fond (1742-1819) did excellent service by 

 his splendid folio on the old volcanoes of the Vivarais and 

 the Velay a work lavishly illustrated with engravings, 

 which, by showing so clearly the association of columnar 

 lavas with unmistakable volcanic cones, ought to have done 

 much to arrest the progress of the Freiberg doctrine of the 

 aqueous origin of basalt. 2 The same good observer under- 

 took a journey into the Western Isles of Scotland towards 

 the end of last century, 3 when that region was much less 



1 Journ. des Mines, vol. vii. (1798), pp. 393-405. 



2 Recherclies sur les Volcans tteints du Vivarais et du Velay, folio, 1778. 



3 Voyage en Angleterre, en jficosse, et aux lies Hebrides, 2 vols. 8vo, 

 1797. 



