59 
of Edinburgh, Session 1862 - 63 . 
seem all to have been performed either in the winter of 1806-7, or 
in the following summer and autumn. There is no doubt that he 
passed the succeeding winter in Edinburgh, but then, for a time, we 
lose trace of him. It appears from a passage in his book (vol. ii. 
p. 67), that he visited Devonshire and Cornwall in 1809 with geo- 
logical objects. I cannot be sure whether or not he had previously 
returned to G-eneva. I understand that his home journey took 
place through Holland, and was not free from embarrassment, owing 
to the war. In 1808 he was elected a member of the Societe de 
Physique et d'Histoire Naturelle de Geneve, which seems rather to 
indicate that he returned home in that year. In 1810 he was 
appointed, under the French regime, joint Professor of Mineralogy 
and G-eology at G-eneva; and became Honorary Professor (under 
the Swiss G-overnment) in 1817. In both these capacities he de- 
livered various courses of lectures, as well on geology as mineralogy ; 
and his geological excursions with his students are still advan- 
tageously recollected. 
In 1813 he visited Auvergne, the Vivarais, and the South of 
France, for geological purposes, and at the same time the Pyrenees, 
and probably the coasts of G-enoa.* Mr Gumming Pruce’s notes give 
us a glimpse of Necker about this period under a different aspect. 
“My next salient recollection of him,” writes Mr C. Bruce, “pre- 
sents him to me as ‘ Minister of Police’ on my arrival at G-eneva 
in the early summer of 1814, when I arrived there from Italy. 
The republic had just effected its restoration, and repudiated its 
annexation to France. I was stopped at the gates to exhibit my 
passport, when, to my infinite delight, my friend [Necker] presented 
himself in uniform,f and you may imagine that my baggage was 
passed with scant investigation. He consigned it to two attendants, 
with orders to carry it to Cologny, to which (his father’s charming 
villa) he insisted on my accompanying him ; and there, in the 
enjoyment of the kindest hospitality, rendered more and more agree- 
able by the charm of his charming mother’s society, I remained 
^ Voyages en Ecosse, tome i. pp. 45 and 215. See also Etudes sur les Alpes, 
p. 363. 
t He was in 1815 captain of a company in the Contingent Genevois, under 
General Bachman. I may here add that he was twice a deputy in the Grand 
Conseil of his Canton, and in 1818 was a representative of Geneva at the 
Swiss Diet. 
