440 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



Rousseau, was interested in the Alps, and it was he who erected 

 at Servoz the monument to Eschen, the young traveller who 

 perished on the Buet in 1800. Dolomieu's own memory is 

 preserved in the title of one of the loveliest districts in 

 the Italian Alps. He endeavoured to pay his master a similar 

 compliment by naming a mineral Saussurite. After having 

 been imprisoned in Naples on his return from Egypt and 

 released through the intervention of the Royal Society, 

 Dolomieu died only a year after de Saussure of a fever said to 

 have been caught in Dauphine. 



Both Humboldt and Alphonse Favre similarly acknowledged 

 de Saussure as their master. The former, who called on de 

 Saussure at Geneva in the autumn of 1795, has recorded that his 

 chief ambition was to imitate a predecessor whom he regarded as 

 his model. 1 It was the perusal of Humboldt's works which awoke 

 in the young Charles Darwin the passion for travel and discovery. 

 Thus is the torch handed on by kindred spirits. Alphonse Favre 

 (1815-90), in his Recherches Geologiques, attempted successfully to 

 carry on de Saussure's work in his own field and by his own 

 method of observation. 



In Sir Humphry Davy's works we find this striking testimony 

 to the method and talents of the author of the Voyages. 



' Of a kindred character [to the writings of Dolomieu] are the 

 descriptions of M. de Saussure. Educated amidst the magnificent 

 scenery of the Alps, this illustrious person felt in his earliest days the 

 warmest passion for the study [geology], and his whole life was 

 more or less devoted to it. Possessing from nature a penetrating 

 genius, he assisted its efforts by all the refinements and resources 

 of science. In his researches he spared no labour and yielded nothing 

 to the common sentiment of self-love. A constant inhabitant of the 

 mountains, he has exceeded all other writers in his description of 

 them. His delineations are equally vivid and correct, and as far as 

 mere language is capable, they awake pictures in the mind. De 

 Saussure has presented the rare instance of a powerful imagination 

 associated with the coolest judgment, of the brilliancy of the ideas 

 and feelings of the poet connected with the minute research and deep 

 sagacity of the philosopher.' [Lectures on Geology. .] 



1 ' Dites au venerable de Saussure que j'ai relu cet hiver mot pour mot tous 

 sea ouvrages, et que je me suis marqu6 toutes les experiences qu'il desire qu'on 

 fasse. J'aime de marcher sur les traces d'un grand homme ' (Humboldt to M. 

 Pictet, January 1798). 



