444 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



independent treatises on very diverse scientific and miscellaneous 

 subjects, such as Glaciers, Hypsometry, Electricity, Meteorology, 

 Subterranean and Submarine Temperatures, even Cretins and 

 Albinos. The literary critic may further complain that there 

 is no attempt at arrangement or effect, that the descriptions of 

 landscapes are, with certain noble exceptions, apt to be colourless 

 and baldly topographical, while even a geologist may find too 

 many details of day by day observations, which might have been 

 further condensed and better arranged. 



The Voyages, it must be admitted, is not in its original form a 

 book for the general reader. Any judicious publisher nowadays 

 would advise the author to divide the material between three sepa- 

 rate works a volume of Alpine Travels, another of Geological 

 Observations, and a third of miscellaneous Scientific Essays. 

 French readers owe a debt to M. Sayous for having shown how 

 easy it was to separate the travel from the geology and the science, 

 and to present the former to the public in a convenient form. 

 Except in the omission of the Preface, a valuable autobiographical 

 document, M. Sayous performed his task with excellent judgment, 

 though the reader may regret the absence of some of de Saussure's 

 lighter incidents, such as the story of the ' Baillif ' of Val Maggia. 1 



De Saussure's reason for publishing his Voyages in the 

 ponderous form he did is intelligible. He did not write for the 

 general public, or for the reader in search of amusement. The 

 Voyages were to him his monument, the record of his life's work, 

 put forth in order to aid men of similar pursuits to follow in his 

 footsteps and carry on his investigations. He regarded his 

 travels as a part and incident of his scientific career. Even the 

 conquest of Mont Blanc, though to himself it might be a matter of 

 intense personal interest, 2 he treated as a means to a scientific 

 end, a subject for a chapter rather than a volume. Mont Blanc, 

 he writes, 'is one of the mountains of Europe the exploration of 

 which would help to throw light on the theory of the earth.' 3 



1 An eight- volume octavo edition was published contemporaneously with the 

 quarto volumes, between 1780 and 1796. It was reissued complete in 1803. 

 M. Sayous' abridgment in one volume of the Partie Pittoresque has been frequently 

 reproduced in France. 



2 Note his desire that Mont Blanc should be conspicuously introduced in 

 his official portrait by Saint-Ours, p. 387. 



8 Voyages, vol. i., Introduction to ' Tour of Mont Blanc.' 



