On human longevity and the amount of life upon the globe / by P. Flourens ; translated from the French second edition, by Charles Martel.

  • Flourens, P. (Pierre), 1794-1867.
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On human longevity and the amount of life upon the globe / by P. Flourens ; translated from the French second edition, by Charles Martel. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    213/216 (page 195)
    i ON THE GLOBE. 195 observer; a thinker of uncommon penetration.* Before him and Saussure, no man had yet so pro- foundly studied the mountains ; he visited them very often; he lived on them, we may literally say he had them always before his eyes. “ The cabinet where I study natural history is not,” says he, “ one of those where imagina- tion alone inspirest While writing, I have the great phenomena before me. I have only to raise my eyes, and from my window, even, I contemplate two great ranges of mountains, the Alps and the Jura, of which, no essential details escape me Jt is them- selves then that I consult.”;]; But, what I specially notice in Deluc is, his noble idea of science; which is certainly not the science to stop at things, but which rises * He likes singular and paradoxical propositions. He delights to show us, for example, mountains preserved “ by a plant, and the feeblest of plants—moss.” Vol. II. p. 20. In this respect, perhaps, he goes too far, but at bottom, nothing is more curious, often more real, than the result of these fine researches, to which this turn of mind has led him. f Yol. II., p. 101. t Yol. I.,p. 271.