DE SAUSSURE IN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE 433 



last fifty years has raged with regard to the action of glaciers on 

 the beds they flow over, whether they serve as an erosive, or as an 

 abrasive, or as a protective agency, de Saussure took no part . That 

 the ice rubbed off corners, scoured hard surfaces, and moved soft 

 material, he could scarcely fail to notice. But since the records 

 of the extension of the ice in past ages escaped him, he was never 

 tempted to anticipate the rash speculations of the modern geo- 

 logists who have attempted to credit glaciers with the excavation 

 of the great valleys and sub-alpine lake-basins. 



It is impossible, in an attempt to deal more or less compre- 

 hensively with de Saussure 's scientific work as an Alpine ex- 

 plorer, to pass over the weak points in his contribution to our 

 knowledge of glaciers. But it would be unjust to him to let 

 them affect seriously our estimate of his general work among the 

 mountains. The glaciers those 'miracles of nature,' as the old 

 Swiss writers liked to call them had first attracted his youthful 

 enthusiasm. But his frequent visits to Chamonix and his further 

 travels had imbued him with the consciousness of larger problems 

 waiting to be solved. He recognised that in the crags of the Alps 

 the skeleton of the earth was, as it were, displayed to the scientific 

 eye, and that there, if anywhere, was to be found the key to its 

 past history. His leading object came to be the investigation of 

 the great processes of world-building. Absorbed in this inquiry, 

 the glaciers appeared to him as little more than decorative details 

 in the work of the great architect, Nature. He found no time to 

 give their phenomena the close study that was essential to their 

 elucidation, and as a consequence he failed to realise that in 

 former ages ice as well as water had played an important part in 

 shaping the surface of our globe as we now see it. 



In other inquiries open to the geologist and mountaineer de 

 Saussure was more successful. If his modesty and caution in 

 speculation had not equalled his energy and industry in research, 

 if his reluctance to theorise had not been accompanied by an 

 equal hesitation to discard the theories of others, he might have 

 done even more than he did to advance the progress of geology. 

 Yet the list of Agenda at the close of his work proves that his obser- 

 vations were leading him to question many of the received beliefs 

 of his forerunners. For example, he realised the importance of a 

 close study of the succession and juxtaposition of strata as a clue 



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