MOUNTAINS AND THEIR ORIGIN. 117 
extinct volcanoes in Auvergne, in the South of 
France, convinced him that the aqueous theory 
was at least partially wrong, and that fire had 
been an active agent in the rock-formations of 
past times. This result did not change the con- 
victions of his master, Werner, who was too old 
or too prejudiced to accept the later views, which 
were nevertheless the result of the stimulus he 
himself had given to geological investigations. 
But A on Buch was indefatigable. For years 
he lived the life of an itinerant geologist. With 
a shirt and a pair of stockings in his pocket, and 
a geological hammer in his hand, he travelled all 
over Europe on foot. The results of his foot- 
journey to Scandinavia were among his most im- 
portant contributions to geology. He went also 
to the Canary Islands ; and it is in his extensive 
work on the geological formations of these islands 
that he showed conclusively not only the Plutonic 
character of all unstratified rocks, but also that 
to their action upon the stratified deposits the in- 
equalities of the earth’s surface are chiefly due. 
He first demonstrated that the melted masses 
within the earth had upheaved the materials de- 
posited in layers upon its surface, and had thus 
formed the mountains. 
No geologist has ever collected a larger amount 
of facts than Yon Buch, and to him we owe a 
great reform not only in geological manciples, 
