124 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



constant correspondents, and their letters show a warmth of feeling 

 and a certainty of meeting with a corresponding sympathy, both 

 in happiness and sorrow, which is the best proof of true friend- 

 ship. De Saussure's complete freedom from vanity and pedantry, 

 coupled with his natural gaiety and a quick wit, must have 

 appealed to the visitors from Paris, and doubtless formed a 

 pleasing counterpoise both to the cynical if brilliant atmosphere of 

 Ferney and the more serious tone of the coteries of the Upper 

 Town. From England came Lord Palmerston ; Lord and Lady 

 Stanhope, who lived at Geneva for several years for the educa- 

 tion of their sons ; Lord Algernon Percy, and many others. 



De Saussure does not seem to have allowed himself to be 

 distracted by the calls of society, or even by the duties of his 

 professorship, from his life-work, original research. Before setting 

 out (in 1767) on his northern tour he had been at pains to explain 

 to Bonnet his aims and the causes of his delay in publishing his 

 results : 



' Various tasks have retarded my Glaciers (sic). I am taking your 

 advice, and writing down what I may forget and the points on which 

 my impressions may grow faint. But I shall publish nothing for a 

 long time. I realise that my work can only gain any value by the 

 thoroughness of my investigations. Journeys have been made for 

 more interesting objects, journeys more fatiguing, more dangerous, 

 and more remarkable. What can I have to describe which has not 

 been seen on a greater scale in the Cordilleras l and elsewhere ? What 

 is wanted is a series of thoroughly carried out investigations into the 

 causes of the low temperatures in the upper layers of the atmosphere, 

 on electricity, on the chemical composition and the formation of 

 mountains, on vapours, meteors, plants, animals.' 



In the early summer of 1769 de Saussure paid an unfruitful 

 visit to the neighbourhood of Grenoble and Chambery and the 

 Grande Chartreuse. He met with a snowstorm and a gale on the 

 heights above the convent. On the Mont Granier (6358 feet), 

 celebrated for a great landslip in 1248, he was more fortunate in 

 his quest for flowering plants . At this period he was still occupy- 

 ing himself a good deal with botany, and going over the different 

 species represented in Haller's great work. 



1 A reference to the recent journeys (circa 1740) in the Andes of the French 

 Academician, La Condamine, and his companions. 



