422 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



extended over seventeen years his contemporaries, A. G. Werner 

 and Buff on, held the field and were busy in Germany and France 

 in propounding so-called ' Theories of the Earth.' 



The ' Geognosy ' of Werner (1750-1817), to which de Saussure 

 often refers, in so far as it was founded on observation was 

 an inquiry into the nature of the materials constituting the 

 present crust of the globe without any reference to their 

 bearing on its past history. It made no attempt to read 

 the record of the rocks. For the rest, it mostly veiled its 

 limitations in a cloak of fantastic speculation. Its deus ex 

 machind was a series of floods and deluges caused by the sudden 

 retreat of a universal ocean. 1 Buffon's imagination took a more 

 definite scope. He based a large superstructure of fancy on 

 scanty foundations in fact. He was ready to offer a ' Story of 

 the Earth ' divided into seven chapters, or epochs. Yet, despite 

 the eloquence of his style and his widespread reputation with the 

 European public, his lucubrations inspired little confidence among 

 his own countrymen. He shared the proverbial fate of prophets. 2 



While in Paris in 1768 de Saussure was brought into relations 

 with two notable geologists of that day, Desmarets (1725-1815) 

 and Guettard (1715-86). Both were concerned in the disco very of 

 the volcanoes of Auvergne and the consequent argument on the 

 character of basalt, in which de Saussure subsequently took part. 

 Desmarets visited ' the glaciers of Savoy ' in 1765, and published 

 a paper on the progressive movement of glaciers. 3 Guettard com- 

 piled a Mineralogy of Dauphine, and visited Geneva on his way 



1 Werner published in 1774 a Travtk des Caracteres des Miniraux. His 

 Classification et Description des Montagnes did not appear until 1787. De 

 Saussure's diary shows that he was reading the latter in the nineties. De 

 Saussure, in his Index, mentions that he had not seen, in 1786, Werner's earlier 

 work. 



a The chapter on ' Glaciers ' in Buffon's Natural History (English edition, 1785) 

 is vague and full of inaccurate statements, which is less surprising since the 

 authority he cites is Bourrit, on whose evidence he expresses himself convinced 

 that ' the glaciers must always continue to have a progressive increase.' His 

 omission to refer to de Saussure, with whom, as has been previously shown, he had 

 been in friendly relations, is curious. Their minds were more or less antagonistic 

 and their methods opposed. Buffon patronised Bourrit on his visit to Paris 

 and introduced him to Louis xvi. (See p. 184.) 



* ' Precis d'un Memoire sur le Mouvement progressif des Glaces dans les 

 Glaciers et sur les Phenomenes qui dependent de ce Deplacement successif ,' par 

 M. Desmarets, Journal de Physique, vol. 13, 1779. See for further mention of 

 Desmaret's treatment of glaciers, p. 431. 



