280 THE LIFE OF JAMES D. FORBES. [CHAP. 



tion are ! There is a surface of only the fourth degree, 

 of which we can form no general geometrical idea we 

 describe it by points ; and thus conical refraction was 

 discovered, many years after the equation was known. 

 " Quand je veux imaginer Dieu," he went on, " j'imagine 

 un Etre qui voit des surfaces de toute ordre." . . . 

 Yes, everyone has his own el%w\ov of God ! formed 

 according to the extension which they find it easiest 

 to give to their ideas of power and omniscience. The 

 Brahmin gives his Deity a hundred hands and the 

 mathematician can only arrive at a generalization : 

 which, however fe^e, is at least, I think, more happy.' 



Eeturning immediately to Courmayeur, Forbes resumed 

 his glacier studies, and passed a fortnight in the investi- 

 gation of the Allee Blanche. 



A long and interesting day was spent on the summit 

 of the Cramont with Chanoine Carrel of Aosta, whose 

 acquaintance Forbes had made on his way to Turin, and 

 who was as great an enthusiast on the subject of 

 mountains and glaciers as himself ; and they afterwards 

 succeeded in tracing the curious geological section of the 

 chain of Mont Blanc, in which the limestone formations 

 appear to dip under the granite, or protogine, which 

 composes the higher peaks, on Mont Saxe, and through 

 the Val Ferrex. Forbes also succeeded in obtaining 

 some authentic statistics as to the former advance and 

 retreat of the Glacier de Brenva, in the shape of the 

 builder's estimate for the repairs of the little chapel of 

 Notre Dame de la Guerison, which nestles among the 

 cliffs overhanging the lower extremity of the glacier, as 

 well as a certificate from the Syndic of Courmayeur 

 containing a statement taken from the archives of the 

 commune, how that in 1818 the Madonna was removed 

 from her chapel, which was then ' dcroulee par 1'accroisse- 

 ment du dit glacier, qui dtait monte au niveau de Ja 

 dite chapelle/ and carried processionally to Courmayeur, 

 where she remained until the glacier retreated, and her 

 chapel was repaired in 1822. 



