IV 



Spallanzani, Breislak 199 



easily visited than it now is, and convinced himself of the 

 volcanic origin of the basalts there, thus adding another im- 

 portant contribution to the literature of volcanic geology. 



Spallanzani (1729-1799), the illustrious professor of 

 Pavia, Eeggio, and Modena, born as far back as 1729, devoted 

 his earlier life to animal and vegetable physiology, and was 

 fifty years of age before he began to turn his attention 

 to -geological questions. But from that period onward he 

 made many journeys in the basin of the Mediterranean 

 from Constantinople to Marseilles. Of especial interest 

 were his minute and picturesque descriptions of the 

 eruptions of Stromboli, which at not a little personal risk 

 he watched from a crevice in the lava. His Travels in the 

 Two Sicilies and in some Parts of the Apennines contained 

 a vast assemblage of careful observations among the recent 

 and extinct volcanoes of Italy. 1 



Another Italian geologist, Scipio Breislak (1748-1826), 

 did good service in making known the volcanic phenomena 

 of his native country, and in publishing two general 

 treatises on geology, in which he ranged himself among 

 the Vulcanists. " I respect," he wrote, " the standard 

 raised by Werner, but the flag of the marvellous and 

 mysterious will never be that which I shall choose to 

 follow." 2 



The days of mere theorizing in the cabinet or the study 

 had now passed away. Everywhere there was aroused a 

 spirit of inquiry into the evidence furnished by the earth 



1 Viaggi alle due Sicilie, 1792-93. 



2 Introduzione alia Geologia, 2 vols. 8vo, 1811, translated into French, 

 1 vol. 1812. Breislak was the author of a valuable treatise on the physical 

 and lithological topography of Campania, and of other works on Italian 

 and general geology. 



