Ehrenberg^s Discoveries— Notices of Eminent Men. 123 



aided by a configuration of the surface very different from the 

 present. The striking and vivid pictures which Montlosier draws 

 of such occurrences, are to the present day singularly instructing 

 and convincing to those who look at that region with the geolo- 

 gist's eye. After publishing this essay, M. Montlosier, a man of 

 varied and commanding talents, became involved in the political 

 struggles of his time, and was an active member of the National 

 Assemblj'', to which he was sent as Deputy of the Noblesse of 

 Auvergne. In his place there he resisted in vain the proposals 

 for the spoliation of the clergy ; and one speech of his on this 

 subject was very celebrated. After witnessing some of the chan- 

 ges which his unhappy country had then to suffer, he became an 

 exile, and resided in London, where for some years he was the 

 editor of the Courier Frangais, a royalist journal. Under the 

 empire, he returned to France, and was employed in the Foreign 

 Office of the Ministry, but recovered little of his property except 

 a portion of a mountain, which was too ungrateful a soil to find 

 another purchaser. The situation however could not but be con- 

 genial to his geological feelings ; for his habitation was in the ex- 

 tinct crater of the Puys de Vaches. The traveller, in approaching 

 the door of the philosopher of Randane, had to wade through sco- 

 rias and ashes ; and from the deep basin in which his house stood, 

 a torrent of lava, still rugged and covered with cinders, has poured 

 down the valley, and at the distance of a league, has formed a 

 dike and barred up the waters which form the lake of Aidat ; — 

 a spot celebrated by Sidonius Apollinaris, Bishop of Clermont in 

 the fifth century, as the seat of his own beautiful residence, under 

 the name of Avitacus. It is curious to remark that Sidonius does 

 not overlook the resemblance between his own mountain and 

 Vesuvius : 



" ^inula Baiano tolluntur culmina cono, 

 Parque cothurnato vertice fulget apex." 



In this most appropriate abode M. de Montlosier was, in his old 

 age, visited at different times by several distinguished English 

 geologists, some of whom are now present ; and invariably de- 

 lighted them with his unfading interest in the geology of his own 

 region, his hospitable reception, and I may add, his lofty and vig- 

 orous presence, according well with his frank and chivalrous de- 

 meanor. His ardor of character had shown itself in early age : 

 " From my first youth," thus his Essay opens, " I occupied my- 



