EDUCATION AND THE RIVIERA (1772-81) 321 



This sound advice did not lead to any restriction in the excursions 

 that de Saussure undertook in the following year in the interest 

 of his scientific studies. In 1776, in the early summer, he accom- 

 panied his friend Sir William Hamilton to Chamonix. In 

 August he made another dash to Chamonix and climbed the Buet, 

 and later took his wife, children, and servants with him for an 

 extensive family tour through southern France in a berlin with 

 four horses. He went up the Puy de Dome on 13th October ; 

 drove on through the hills of Auvergne to Nimes, Avignon, Vaucluse, 

 Orange, and Grenoble. On the 12th November he was at Lyons, 

 whence the party made another round by Dijon, Semur, Besan9on, 

 and Pontarlier. In the Jura they suffered from the weather, 

 which was not surprising, since they did not return to Genthod till 

 30th November. 



Sir William Hamilton in the same year writes to de Saussure 

 from Paris to report a death in his family. His comments indicate 

 the philosophic mind he was later in life to have occasion to 

 exhibit : 



' As for me, I take events for which there is no remedy as best 

 I can, and I confess that since I have learnt to look on nature as a 

 whole, and discovered that what we call ancient is comparatively 

 very modern, and that the longest life of man is little more than that 

 of the insect which is born in the morning and dies in the evening, the 

 saddest events no longer produce the same effect on me. I shall 

 fight vigorously to ward off misfortune ; but when there is no 

 remedy one must console oneself. I enjoy as well as I can the present 

 moment.' 



At the end of the year we find him proposing de Saussure 

 for the Fellowship of the Royal Society. He writes that he has 

 no doubt de Saussure will be elected without any opposition. 

 For some technical reason different ones are alleged in the cor- 

 respondence either lack of a seconder with personal knowledge, 

 or that de Saussure had not contributed a paper to the Transactions 

 of the Society nothing came of the proposal at the time. It was 

 not till 1788, after de Saussure had established a popular reputation 

 by his ascent of Mont Blanc, that his scientific claims were re- 

 cognised. The delay contrasts oddly with the Society's relative 

 eagerness to receive de Saussure 's far less distinguished townsman, 



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