Hv PEOCEEDIXGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [^lay I907, 



His success as a teacher depended also, in do small degree, upon 

 the amount and quality of his work as an original and unwearied 

 investigator, and the recognition which this work met with, not only 

 in Switzerland but throughout the scientific world. The fossili- 

 ferous rocks of his native land had early fascinated him, and he 

 consecrated all his mental and bodily energies to their patient 

 study. In his young days, after returning to Lausanne, he would in 

 summer make his way into the Alps to begin there those researches 

 which, late in life, he brought to so excellent a conclusion. There 

 were then still living some of the survivors of the heroic age of 

 geology, whom he was privileged to meet. He used to tell of 

 his acquaintance with Jean de Charpentier, and of the great men 

 whom he had heard disputing with that illustrious glacialist over 

 his theoretical views. He was delighted to recount to his students 

 how one day he was scolded by Leopold von Buch for having 

 ventured to offer to that old geological Spartan the loan of an 

 umbrella. 



Eenevier had great powers of endurance, which stood him in 

 good stead in his mountain-climbing. He is said to have been 

 able to go through a week of excursions, carrying with him for all 

 meals only a box of some kind of peptone and a little bread. And 

 in his unwarmed museum during winter, when everything was frozen 

 hard outside and inside, he would discourse with his usual enthusiasm 

 on the specimens, while to the shivering students it seemed as if 

 he must get his warmth out of his beloved fossils. He was always 

 at his best in the field. There his gaiety and merriment, his fund 

 of anecdote, and his contagious enthusiasm over everything geolo- 

 gical made him a charming associate to his friends and an inspiriting 

 professor to his students. 



Having begun at an early age to publish the results of his obser- 

 vations, Eenevier continued all through life to pour forth a copious 

 stream of contributions to geological literature. As the Societe 

 Yaudoise has its seat at Lausanne, and publishes summaries of 

 its proceedings, it supplied to the young student and teacher a 

 constant stimulus and companionship in scientific work, while at 

 the same time it provided an opportunity for making the results of 

 his researches known to the geological world outside. Eventually 

 he became the life and soul of that Society, seldom failing to appear 

 at its meetings, and taking the keenest personal interest in its 

 business. 



Having such a channel of publication open to him in his own 



