YOUTH AND EARLY TRAVELS 67 



source of the Orbe in the Jura, that has attracted the admiration 

 of literary critics : 



' We went to see this source where it issues at the mills of Bonport, 

 and found it well worthy of the visit of the curious traveller. A semi- 

 circular cliff, about 220 feet high, composed of great horizontal layers, 

 cut vertically, and broken by lines of pines which grow on the shelves 

 formed by its protruding salients, closes to the west the vale of Vallorbes. 

 Loftier mountains clad in forests form a circle open only where it 

 allows the course of the Orbe, which rises at the very foot of this cliff. 

 Its waters of a perfect purity flow with majestic calm over a bed 

 carpeted with a beautiful green moss, Fontinalis antipyretica. Soon, 

 however, the centre of the current, quickened by the steep slope, 

 breaks in foam against the rock which occupies the middle of its 

 channel, while the sides, less troubled and still flowing smoothly over 

 their green bed, make the whiteness of the central stream more notice- 

 able ! Thus it glides out of sight, following the course of a deep glen 

 clothed in pine-woods whose dark hue is rendered more striking by the 

 brighter tone of the beeches that grow among them. Gazing at this 

 source one understands how poets have been led to deify fountains, 

 or to make them the homes of their divinities. The purity of the 

 springs, the beautiful shades which surround them, the broken cliffs 

 and dense forests which defend their access, this combination of 

 charms, at once gentle and imposing, creates an impression difficult 

 to express, and suggests the presence of a Being above humanity. 



' Ah ! had Petrarch discovered this source, and found here his 

 Laura, how much would he have preferred it to that of Vaucluse, 

 more abundant, perhaps, and swifter, but whose sterile rocks have 

 neither the grandeur nor the rich setting which decorate ours.' 

 [Voyages, 385.] 



This passage has been selected by Ruskin, a lifelong admirer of 

 de Saussure, for special eulogy. It loses, no doubt, in translation, 

 yet I cannot rank it as high as others in de Saussure 's works, less 

 touched by the conventional classicism of his day. 



The two remarkable men whose influence most affected de 

 Saussure 's early life and career must now be introduced to my 

 readers. It was in 1756 that a sister of de Saussure 's mother, Mile. 

 Jeanne Marie de la Rive, married Charles Bonnet, at that time 

 one of the leading names in science and philosophy at Geneva and 

 a man of European reputation. The relationship thus created 

 was destined to be an enduring one. Fifty -four years afterwards 



