422 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xxvii 



where he enjoyed the conclusion of the service by a military 

 band which gave selections from the Figlia del Regimento, but 

 above all he appreciated the walks and drives to the geological 

 features of the environs. He reluctantly refrained from ascend- 

 ing the Puy de Dome, but managed the Pic Parion, Gergovia, 

 Royat, and other points of interest without fatigue. . . . 



After Clermont they visited the other four great volcanic 

 areas explored by Scrope, Mont Dore, the Cantal, Le Puy, 

 and the valley of the Ardeche. Under the care of his 

 friend, and relieved from the strain of work, my father's 

 health rapidly improved. He felt no bad effects from a 

 night at Mont Dore, when, owing to the crowd of invalids 

 in the little town, no better accommodation could be found 

 than a couple of planks in a cupboard. Next day they 

 took up their quarters in an unpretentious cabaret at La 

 Tour d'Auvergne, one of the villages on the slopes of the 

 mountain, a few miles away. 



Here (writes Sir J. Hooker), and for some time afterwards, 

 on our further travels, we had many interesting and amusing 

 experiences of rural life in the wilder parts of central France, 

 its poverty, penury, and too often its inconceivable impositions 

 and overcharges to foreigners, quite consistently with good feel- 

 ing, politeness, and readiness to assist in many ways. 



By the loth of July, nine days after setting out, I felt satis- 

 fied (he continues) that your father was equal to an excursion 

 upon which he had set his heart, to the top of the Pic de Sancy, 

 4000 feet above La Tour and 7 miles distant. 



It was on this occasion that the friends made what they 

 thought a new discovery, namely evidence of glaciil action 

 in central France. Besides striated stones in the fields or 

 built into the walls, they noticed the glaciated appearance 

 of one of the valleys descending from the peak, and espe- 

 cially some isolated gigantic masses of rock on an open part 

 of the valley, several miles away, as to which they debated 

 whether they were low buildings or transported blocks. Sir 

 Joseph visited them next day, and found they were the latter, 

 brought down from the upper part of the peak.* 



* He published an account of these blocks in Nature, xiii. 31, 166, 

 but subsequently found that glaciation had been observed by von 

 Lassaul in 1872 and by Sir William Guise in 1870. 



