FORERUNNERS 25 



writer opened a new path to the human spirit ; a domain of which 

 Science, Art, and Letters are still far from having exhausted the 

 riches.' 



Again the late M. Valletta, who, in his interesting volume, 

 Rousseau Genevois (1911), is by no means disposed to minimise any 

 claim that can fairly be put forward for his client, practically 

 acquiesces in the view here suggested. He writes, ' To tell the 

 truth, it is to the middle region of the mountains, among the 

 buttresses of the Alpine giants, that St. Preux keeps. He pre- 

 served a respectful distance from the high rocky peaks which he 

 esteems inaccessible, and the glaciers from which the crags 

 separated him. Still he was here, too, a forerunner ; he prepared 

 and made ready the way for Bourrit and de Saussure.' 



Contemporary testimony as to the local influence of de 

 Saussure 's example and teaching on his fellow-townsmen is 

 afforded by Beckford, the creator of Font Hill. He visited 

 Geneva in 1782, and on climbing the Saleve found its crest 

 frequented by holiday-makers, on whom he spends a page of 

 mild sarcasm. 



' The rage for natural history has so victoriously pervaded all 

 ranks of people in the Republic that almost every day in the week 

 sends forth some of its journeymen to ransack the neighbouring cliffs 

 and transfix unhappy butterflies. Silversmiths and toymen, possessed 

 by the spirit of Deluc's and de Saussure's lucubrations, throw away 

 the light implements of their trade and sally forth with hammer and 

 pickaxe to pound pebbles and knock at the door of every mountain 

 for information. Instead of furbishing up teaspoons and sorting 

 watchchains they talk of nothing but quartz and feldspath. One 

 flourishes away on the durability of granite, whilst another treats 

 calcareous rock with contempt ; but, as human pleasures are seldom 

 perfect, permanent acrimonious disputes too frequently interrupt the 

 calm of the philosophic excursion. Squabbles arise about the genus 

 of a coralite, or concerning the element which has borne the greatest 

 part in the convulsion of nature. The advocate of water too often 

 sneaks home to his wife with a tattered collar, whilst the partisan of 

 fire and volcanoes lies vanquished in a puddle or is winding up the 

 clue of his argument in a solitary ditch. I cannot help thinking so 

 diffused a taste for fossils and petrifactions is of no very particular 

 benefit to the artisans of Geneva, and that watches would go as well 

 though their makers were less enlightened.' 



