DE SAUSSURE IN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE 427 



Its author maintained that the solid materials of the globe 

 had been formed under a primeval ocean, the withdrawal of which 

 in some unaccountable manner into the bowels of the earth had 

 led to a series of catastrophic floods. 



It is obvious that, given such an agency, the physicist was 

 spared much trouble in ascertaining causes for any unusual 

 phenomena he might meet with. They could conveniently be put 

 down to the deluge, or one of the deluges, caused by the retreating 

 waters. Erratic blocks and moraines were accepted as among 

 the quite minor monuments of Neptune ! 



The theory in its more extreme form has long since fallen into 

 discredit, so much so that it was dismissed by Sedgwick as ' Wer- 

 nerian nonsense/ or ' water on the brain ' ; but in its day it held 

 the field, or was at least treated with respect by competent 

 investigators. 



Under its influence de Saussure was disposed to look 

 on all strata as marine sediments ; the differences between 

 stratified and unstratified rocks he attributed to the state 

 of the waters in which they were deposited. The conception 

 of a slowly contracting globe the surface of which as it 

 shrank wrinkled into bosses and ridges, hollows and clefts, 

 which were left as raw material for the great sculptors, heat and 

 cold, water and ice, had not yet fully dawned on his generation. 

 The violence of the forces resulting from this contraction up- 

 thrusts which bent one rock over another, removed some strata 

 and forced others out of their place was still wholly unrealised. 

 It is true that towards the end of de Saussure 's career we find in 

 his Agenda traces of a growing disposition to question how far 

 the theory fitted the facts, to look outside it for possible explana- 

 tions of natural phenomena. But it remained to the end more 

 or less of a stumbling-block in his investigation of Alpine features. 



The most remarkable instance of how slow a scientific eye and 

 mind may be to recognise for the first time facts that, once pointed 

 out, become obvious to every tourist, may be found in de Saus- 

 sure's treatment of glaciers. The 'Glaciers of Savoy' had been 

 the prime motive of his travels. Before starting for his fourth 

 trip to Chamonix in 1767, he had consulted Haller as to whether 

 he could profitably write a supplement to what was then the 

 standard work dealing with them Griiner's Eisgebirge (1760). He 



