DE SAUSSURE IN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE 441 



Still more striking and weighty coming as it does from a 

 fellow-worker in the same field, one who, in bent of intellect, bore 

 in some respects a singular resemblance to de Saussure, and who 

 also imitated him in the literary form he gave to the record of 

 his travels and researches by combining both in a consecutive 

 narrative is the warm recognition of the Genevese philosopher's 

 merits which prefaces Forbes 's work on the Alps, published in 

 1843. I give a few of the crucial sentences : 



' Where,' asks Forbes, ' where are we to look for travels like 

 de Saussure 's, and why are comprehensive works adapted for the 

 general reader and student of nature to be replaced entirely by 

 studied monographs connected with some single science in some 

 single district ? ' These are questions echo may still repeat with 

 advantage. Again' There is scarcely one of the modern authors 

 with whom I am acquainted . . . whose writings can be com- 

 pared with those of the great historian of the Alps.' Forbes 

 resolved to travel, he tells us, 'not as an amusement, but as a 

 serious occupation,' with de Saussure before him as a model. l 



We turn to a leading geologist of our own day, Sir Archibald 

 Geikie. The oracle may seem at first to speak with no certain 

 voice. Sir Archibald indicates that it is difficult from de 

 Saussure's works to ascertain definitely what were his views on 

 many fundamental questions. In Sir Archibald's article on 

 ' Geology ' in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, we are surprised to find 

 no mention of de Saussure in the list of those to whom a direct 

 advance in the progress of the science is attributable. Yet else- 

 where, in his Founders of Geology, the omission is explained, and 

 de Saussure's claims are summed up and appreciated as follows : 



'The labours of de Saussure mark an epoch in the investigation 

 of the history of the globe. De Saussure was the first and most 

 illustrious of that distinguished band of geologists which Switzerland 

 has furnished to the ranks of science. . . . His descriptions of a 

 great mountain-chain form admirable models of careful observation 

 and luminous narrative. Though he did not add much to the advance- 

 ment of geological theory, he contributed largely to the stock of 

 ascertained fact, which was so needful as a basis for theoretical specu- 



1 One of de Saussure's guides, J. M. Cachat, called ' le Geant,' accompanied 

 Professor Forbes to the Mer de Glace in 1829, forty-two years after his ascent 

 of Mont Blanc with the Genevese savant. 



