3l8 HEROES OF SCIENCE. 



can do in some thousands or hundred thousand 

 years by its continual wearing. No deluge could 

 have descended the valley without carrying away 

 the crater and ashes above. 



Six hundred or seven hundred feet higher, is an 

 old plateau of basalt, and if this flowed at the 

 bottom of the then valley, the last work of the Sioule 

 is but a unit in proportion to the other. There are 

 several of the Clermont savans who, since they 

 discovered how much we were interested with this, 

 have given us to understand they intended to 

 publish on it, but no doubt they will take a year 

 before they launch out in the expense of a patache to 

 Pontgibaud. Murchison certainly keeps it up with 

 more energy than anyone I ever travelled with, for 

 Buckland, though he worked as hard, always flew 

 about too fast to make sure of anything. Mons. 

 Le Coq, the botanist, a clever young man, assures 

 me that the geology of the soils does not aflect the 

 botany of Auvergne. I shall get some specimens 

 from him for Dr. Hooker, I expect. None to be 

 bought, at least this year, for it seems there may 

 be hereafter. It is a wonderful fact that Glaux 

 maritima grows round some saline springs here. 

 Busset, an engineer, who is mapping Auvergne, 

 has forced us to dine with him to-morrow. As we 

 know his object to be to get geology out of us, of 

 which he knows nothing, M. fears it will be a bore, 

 but the man is evidently clever. We shall get 

 barometric heights from him, and a map of our little 

 volcanic district, and if he pumps unreasonably, I 



