a LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



by layers of hail.' This phrase may, no doubt, possibly be taken 

 to refer to a snowfield. But the words are much more applicable 

 to a glacier. It seems to me probable, taking into account 

 Leonardo's remarks about the dark hue of the sky and the bright- 

 ness of the sunshine, that he may have climbed to a height of 

 about ten thousand feet above Gressoney or Alagna, on the edge 

 of one of the glaciers of Monte Rosa. 



Leonardo found deeper sources of interest in Alpine scenery. 

 These were not, as in the case of Petrarch, emotional ; they were 

 connected with physical rather than with psychical problems. 

 He was a geologist before geology. He looked to the mountains, 

 as no one did again for more than two hundred years, for a key to 

 the story of our globe. He attributed valley formation largely to 

 the action of rivers. He noted the distribution of rocks and the 

 frequent correspondence of the strata on the opposite flanks of 

 defiles. He recognised the true significance of fossils, and denied 

 the possibility of their being the records of a universal deluge, 

 which he boldly discredited. He realised that the plain of 

 Lombardy had once been a gulf of the Adriatic. He no doubt 

 invoked too frequently the agency of catastrophic floods, but in 

 this delusion he was to have many followers in future generations, 

 among them de Saussure himself. Finally, as an artist he was 

 quick to note the manifold effects of distance and atmosphere 

 displayed in mountain landscapes, the gathering of the storm 

 clouds below the naked peaks, the sharp definition of the ridges 

 on the skyline compared to the relative softness of the lower 

 slopes, seen through a denser atmosphere. 



In the early literature of the Alps no name is more worthy to 

 be commemorated than that of Conrad Gesner of Zurich (1516- 

 1565). In a relatively short life Gesner combined an amazing 

 variety of intellectual activities ; he was in his many-sidedness a 

 typical figure of the Renaissance. Remembered to-day chiefly 

 as a botanist, he was also the author of the standard work of the 

 time on zoology. Cuvier described him as the creator of scientific 

 botany and the founder of zoology, ' a prodigy of industry, of 

 knowledge and sagacity.' Despite his labours in natural science, 

 Gesner was also active as a humanist and a man of letters ; he 

 edited classics ; he was the compiler of a universal catalogue of 

 authors and a volume containing an account of one hundred and 



