CHAPTER XVII 

 DE SAUSSURE IN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE 



To the Genevese patrician of whose life some account has been 

 given in these pages, the branch of physical inquiry which 

 deals with the structure and story of our globe owes not only 

 its name, but also the earliest serious attempt at a definition of 

 its scope and method. Two years before the publication of the 

 first volume of the Voyages, Deluc had hesitated to employ the 

 term Geology. It was de Saussure who gave it official sanction 

 and currency. It was under his auspices that the science made 

 its first steps forward in the right path. 



Before de Saussure's day an imperfect study of the earth's 

 crust had, it is true, given rise from time to time to hazardous 

 speculations on the part of ' natural philosophers ' whose theories 

 now survive mainly as historical curiosities. But his predecessors 

 had been either mineralogists who pondered over fossils, which 

 they surmised to be ' lusus naturae ' freaks of nature or 

 possibly proofs supplied by Providence to confirm Holy Writ and 

 confute unbelievers in a universal deluge ; or else ' cosmogonists,' 

 who propounded such vague Theories of the Earth as could be 

 brought into some sort of harmony with the tenets of the Church. 

 When observation failed them, imagination was ever at hand to 

 fill the gap. On such vague imaginings de Saussure put a check. 

 He led inquirers back to the true path by insisting, both by his 

 precept and example, that the history of the earth in its past ages 

 was only to be elucidated by a sedulous examination of the 

 substances composing its crust, and that this could nowhere be 

 carried on so effectually as among mountains, in whose cliffs and 

 defiles the successive formations and strata lie exposed to the 

 eyes of the intelligent student. 



While de Saussure was writing the publication of his Voyages l 

 1 Vol. i. of Voyages was published 1779 ; vol. ii. 1784 ; vols. iii. and iv. 1796. 



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