52 HISTORY OF GEOLOGY AND PAL/EONTOLOGY. 



tremors and by other disturbances of the earth's surface. 

 Great cavities formed in the earth's crust and filled with 

 sea-water ; or, sometimes, portions of the continents were 

 devastated by floods. In illustration of this, Pallas said that 

 at the outbreak of volcanic action in the Indian Ocean and 

 South Seas, "which two seas seem to occupy a position above 

 one common volcanic arc" the waters of the Equator were 

 forced towards the Poles, and carried northward from India 

 the plants and animals that now lie buried in the loose gravels 

 of the Siberian plains. This was the explanation he gave 

 of the occurrence in such remarkable number of bones of 

 mammoths, rhinoceroses, and buffaloes in Siberia. 



Although this explanation and many of his opinions 

 about volcanoes were erroneous, there can be no 

 doubt that Pallas was an accurate observer, and that his 

 broadly conceived delineation of the surface conformation, 

 general sculpture, and physical characters of a huge and 

 hitherto untravelled territory, conferred an inestimable boon 

 on the struggling natural sciences. The works of Pallas have 

 been the basis of all later geological investigations in eastern 

 and southern Russia, in the Ural and Altai mountains, and in 

 Siberia. 



A life-long student of the French-Swiss Alps, Horace 

 Benedicte de Saussure must always be given the place of 

 honour amongst the early founders of the science of the 

 mountains. Born in Geneva in 1740, the scion of a noble 

 and rich patrician family which had already won high 

 scientific repute in the previous century, De Saussure en- 

 joyed in his early years and education every advantage of 

 wealth, culture, and influence. As a boy he rambled in 

 the country around Geneva, diligently collecting plants and 

 minerals. But the mountains near Geneva failed to 

 satisfy the enterprise of the youthful student. At the age 

 of twenty he made his first walking tour to Chamonix, and 

 from that time resolved to devote his life to the study of the 

 Western Alps. Two years later he was appointed Professor of 

 Philosophy at the Academy of Geneva. 



In 1787, at the head of a well-equipped party, he carried out 

 the first ascent of Mont Blanc. In the following year he 

 spent eighteen days in the Col du Geant, at a height of over 

 10,000 feet; and between 1789 and 1792, he climbed the 

 summits of Monte Rosa, the Breithorn and Rothhorn. In 



