11 
Cuvier’s Historical Eloge of Werner. 
Under the shelter of those limestone ridges which intersect 
Italy and Greece, which are of all heights, — which are rami- 
fied in all directions, — and which abound in springs ; — ^in those 
charming valleys, rich in all the productions of living nature, 
Philosophy and the Arts first sprung to life. It is there that 
those minds have arisen, of which the human race has most rea- 
son to be proud ; whilst the vast sandy deserts of Tartary and 
Africa have always been inhabited by fierce and wandering 
shepherds. And even in countries which have the same laws, 
and the same language, a practised traveller is able, from the 
manners of the people, from the appearance of their houses and 
of their clothes, to guess at the composition of the soil of each 
canton ; in the same manner as, from this composition, the phi- 
losophical mineralogist conjectures what may be their manners, 
their degrees of comfort, and of instruction. Our granitic dis- 
tricts produce, upon all the arts of life, very different effects 
from our calcareous. The natives of the Limousin, or of Lower 
Brittany, are not lodged, they are not fed, we might even say, 
they do not think, like those of Champagne or of Normandy. 
Even the results of the conscription have been different, and 
different according to a fixed law in the different districts. 
Geographical Mineralogy thus assumes a high importance, 
when we connect it with what Werner called Economical Mi- 
neralogy, or the history of the employment of minerals for the 
wants of man. 
The comprehensive mind of this great Professor seized equal- 
ly all these relations, and it was with an ever new delight, that 
his hearers listened to his exposition of so much of them as the 
plan of his public prelections embraced. But in his private 
conversations he traced their application a great deal farther. 
The history of nations, and that of their languages, ■ was con- 
nected, in his apprehension, with that of minerals, and he never 
considered himself as departing froni his principal object, when 
he gave himself up occasionally to those other inquiries. He 
traced the various tribes in their migrations, according to the de- 
clivities and directions of countries, and he thus connected their 
progress and their stations with the structure of the globe. He 
connected the different languages with families : he traced each 
family to a common source, originating always in the most ele- 
