DE SAUSSURE IN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE 431 



minutely investigated, de Saussure took small account. 1 Assum- 

 ing it to be a solid and rigid mass, he paid little attention to the 

 features inconsistent with this theory which were subsequently 

 pointed out by Rendu and Forbes, and were in his own day 

 indicated in a casual fashion, it is true by an obscure ' Visitor 

 to the Glaciers,' one of his fellow-citizens. 2 



That de Saussure, always suspicious of theories without facts, 

 should have paid no attention to an ingenious speculation intro- 

 duced casually into the narrative of a slender volume entitled a 

 Voyage Pittoresque, is surprising, but explicable. In his own mind 

 and writings the picturesque was always kept in strict subordina- 

 tion. But a paper on glaciers by a geologist of repute, read before 

 the Academic des Sciences at Paris, and published to the world, 

 could not fail to call for notice on his part. His comments were 

 contained in the chapter on glaciers in the Voyages (section 528). 

 Elsewhere in the work, and in connection with other subjects, 

 Desmarets is mentioned by name, but here, for some unknown 

 reason, the paper criticised is referred to only as by a ' very 

 capable modern author.' 



Desmarets' article, as published in the Journal de Physique, in 

 May 1779, appears to be an abstract of a lecture he gave before 

 the Paris Academy three years previously, in which he described 

 the results of a visit to Chamonix in August 1765, made with 

 the object of studying the glacial problem. 



Desmarets examined most of the glaciers of the valley, paying 

 particular attention to the Glacier des Bossons and the Mer de 

 Glace. He noticed with a careful eye their less obvious features 

 as well as those that strike every traveller. Thus he called atten- 

 tion not only to the moraines, seracs, and crevasses, but also to 

 the structure of the ice, its layers, or bands, its blue veins and 

 opaque white patches. He pointed out that the nature of the 

 rocks carried and deposited by the ice showed that they had 

 been brought from the centre of the range. But when Desmarets 



1 De Saussure, as has been pointed out (p. 152), observed and recorded in 

 1781 in his manuscript diary the veined structure of the ice ; but, since he was 

 unable to discover a satisfactory explanation of it, never troubled himself to 

 call attention to a feature which, recognised by Forbes, led in after years to 

 prolonged discussions. 



2 See chapter viii. for an account of the remarkable anticipation of the views 

 of Rendu and Forbes on glacier motion contained in Bordier's Voyage Pittoresque. 

 aux Glacieres, 1773. 



