456 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



question roused him for the moment to vigorous controversy, 

 and left him permanently disheartened at his colleagues' narrow- 

 ness of outlook. For some years he remained aloof from political 

 affairs, until the times grew critical, when he gave his best energies 

 to a most gallant attempt to save the Republic. He failed, and 

 may, I think, truly be said to have killed himself in the attempt. 

 For it seems certain that it was not so much the hardships of 

 the Col du G4ant in 1788 as the disorders which culminated in the 

 murders on the bastion in 1794, which led to the succession of 

 paralytic strokes that brought his life to a premature close. 1 



De Saussure's mind was singularly exempt from the foibles 

 that beset so many investigators. Well content if he could suc- 

 ceed in laying solid foundations for others to build on, he was 

 loath to waste time in disputes over claims to priority in discovery. 

 His main object was to give his successors an example ot the plan 

 and method by which the new science of geology might best be 

 advanced. The record of travel and research embodied in the 

 four volumes of the Voyages remains as his legacy to posterity 

 and his best monument. His fellow-citizens have held it a 

 sufficient one, and it has been left to others to preserve his 

 memory with the crowd by the erection at Chamonix of the 

 picturesque group (representing Jacques Balmat pointing out to 

 de Saussure the way up Mont Blanc) which records the most 

 striking incident in a career full of the very varied activities to 

 which in the preceding pages I have endeavoured to do some 

 tardy justice. 



1 See on de Saussure's constitution and illness the medical report of his 

 physician, Dr. Odier, p. 129, and de Candolle's obituary notice. 



