DE SAUSSURE IN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE 423 



to Chamonix in 1772. De Saussure records that he liked him 

 very much, 'though he had compared Switzerland to Canada.' l 



Another contemporary geologist who carried on work of a 

 wider scope and significance was Pallas, a German of encyclo- 

 paedic mental activity who was sent as a member of a scientific 

 mission to Siberia by the Empress Catherine. After six years 

 of sedulous travel and toil he returned to St. Petersburg in 

 1774. The results of his journeys several ponderous volumes 

 dealing with various branches of natural history were first issued 

 in German. A French edition in five volumes, published at Paris, 

 did not appear till 1788. De Saussure, writing in 1779, must have 

 had before him at least Pallas 's treatise on The Formation of Moun- 

 tains, published in 1777. He writes in the Preface to the Voyages : 

 ' Pallas's work is possibly the greatest and best model of its class ; he 

 has collected out of the vast treasury of his observations what seemed 

 to him most valuable with regard to the formation of mountains.' 

 Taking the Ural chain as a type of mountain structure, Pallas 

 proposed to recognise in it primary, secondary, and tertiary 

 formations, the first forming the centre of the range. 'These 

 geological terms,' writes Sir A. Geikie, ' were not used by him in 

 their more precise modern definition . . . the main value of his 

 observations lies in his clear recognition of a geological sequence 

 in passing from the centre to the outside. He saw that the oldest 

 portions were to be found along the axis of the chain ; the 

 youngest on the lower ground on either side.' With this praise 

 we may compare Cuvier's verdict in his Eloge of Pallas. He 

 points out that Pallas's experiences in Siberia led him to the con- 

 clusion that ' as a rule mountain chains consist of a granite core 

 flanked by successive zones of schistose and calcareous rocks. 

 This great fact which he records gave birth to modern geology. 

 De Saussure, Deluc, and Werner make it the foundation of a true 

 knowledge of the structure of the earth, as distinguished from 

 the fantastic notions of their predecessors.' It must not, how- 

 ever, be inferred from Cuvier's language that it was wholly due 

 to Pallas that this succession of formations was pointed out. 

 De Saussure had observed it independently, if he was not the 

 first to give it publicity. 



The work of another contemporary, the Scotsman Hutton, 

 1 See for an account of Guettard's work, Sir A. Geikie's Founders of Geology. 



