FORBES'S TRAVELS THROUGH THE ALPS OF SAVOY. Tins work comes
nearer to the delightful and instructive volumes of SAUSSURE than any book that has been published since his day. Not that we mean to rank it in the same class with SAUSSURE'S; for the Swiss naturalist was an original, who struck out a new path for himself, and Mr. FORBES avowedly takes him for his model. SAUSSURE and DE Luc about the same time traversed repeatedly, with the minute and persevering observation of a real passion, the former the alpine summits of Europe, the latter the low plains which skirt the Baltic and the North Sea. They contemplated nature in the aggregate : no phxnomena of the earth, the water, or the atmosphere, nor even the modification of human character pro- duced by local influences, escaped them. The application of in- strumental measurement to the natural history of our globe was then in its infancy. Their methods were more cumbrous, their observations less precisely accurate; but in return, they saw nature as a whole, not with the eyes of mere geologists or meteorologists. They studied the earth and animated nature : their successors, fol- lowing up each a class of their observations, study rocks, glaciers, or plants. The germs of the modern sciences of physical geogra- phy, geology, &c. are in them intermingled as in nature: their suc- cessors, by taking each his separate department, have accumulated among them greater stores of precise knowledge ; but no one indi- vidual of them combines so much, or leaves such a living and bene- ficial impression on the reader's mind.
Of all with whose writings we are acquainted, Mr. FORBES has come nearest to these his fascinating predecessors. His range is narrower than that of SACSSURE, (to confine our parallel to the one who laboured in the same region,) and he points this out himself. "While general geology may be considered as the basis of his
See ssu Re's] work, or the investigation which guided the course of his travels, the theory of glaciers, and of the departments of geology and topography more immediately connected with them, forms the grand work of mine." Perhaps there is another difference between them. SAUSSURE'S style is subdued and unostentatious, yet his thoughts are full of the richest poetry. There is scarcely any thing more intense in BYRON than his quiet descriptions of nocturnal and evening scenery. Mr. FORBES too has a sense of the poetry of nature ; some of his descriptions of mountain scenery are striking and impressive : but his sense of the beautiful in nature has been cultivated in an age when it is the fashion to appreciate it : Skussuaes passion was spontaneous, in an age when few troubled their heads about the beauties of inanimate nature.
We almost fear that this antithesis between SAUSSURE and Foams has been pursued to an extent that may have the appear- ance of seeking to depreciate the latter. This is far from our aim. A careful perusal of his book left the impression on our mind that there was in it a kindred spirit to that of the Genevese philosopher, and our wish to avoid suspicion of exaggerated praise made us dwell on their characteristic differences.
Mr. FORBES'S work, though it expatiates over what in these days of rambling appears a limited field, is the fruit of the patient ob- servation and thought of many years. The scene is confined be- tween the Western extremity of Mont Blanc and the Eastern ex- tremity of Monte Rosa, and neither extends to the Rhone on the North nor to the Po on the South. "I have spent a part of ten summers on the Continent, and six of these in the Alps and ad- jacent country. I have thus repeated my visits to the same spot ; and, without almost any exception, I have found more to enjoy, to admire, and to learn, on the renewal of my acquaintance mith it. Most of the places described in this volume have been visited twice, and several of them in four different years. As the mere novelty of travelling wears off, its deeper charms impress themselves more indelibly ; the habits of observation and of thought are strengthened: the short term of human life itself seems to expand in proportion to the variety and greatness of the objects contem- plated." This is the secret of the charm of Professor FORBES'S work. He has not scampered over his ground, but traversed it again and again with observant eye. "The habit of observation is of slow growth," and it is only by frequently recurring to a view that we learn to see all its features.
Nature has rewarded his patient contemplation of her lineaments, by revealing to him what more hasty travellers left undiscovered. Our author is the first is ho has given a correct description of the innermost recesses of the Pennine Alps, and their connexion with Mont Blanc ; and he has advanced nearer than any of his pre- decessors to a correct theory of glacier phwnomena. He has tra- versed the mountain-chain we have named by passes which were known to exist by but fee even of the natives. He has penetrated into their wildest recesses ; and, not content with the idle vanity of mounting a previously untrodden peak and threading defiles where mine had passed before, he has studied their mutual bearings, until he has been able to present them to his readers as a majestic organic whole. With regard to the glaciers, he was the first to subject their movements to accurate measurements; and he has thus been enabled to substitute a theory based upon accurate ob- servation for specious conjectures. He has for the first time as- certained by actual measurement the velocity of the glacier's down- ward movement, and the internal structure of its ice; and, by com- bining those results with the structure of the vallies along which it glides, and by tracing the icy stream from its source to its summit, he has accounted for its growth and decay, and explained its agency in altering the features of the solid globe. It is not so much the results of his investigations—though they are valuable—as the spirit in which Professor FORBES'S work is composed, that lends it importance. He has undertaken to show that more is to be gained by diligent and persevering study in a comparatively limited field than by casting hasty and superficial glances over a wide one. He has undertaken to solve the question "whether it is not a greater service to the community to show how much remains to be seen and studied in countries comparatively speaking accessible to all, than to write detailed descriptions of regions presenting few natural objects of importance, or of remote tribes, unvisited perhaps only because uninteresting or dangerous"; and has decided it by his own example in the affirmative. He has set an example of patient, unostentatious research, which the dashing and superficial travellers of the day would do well to imi- tate if—they could.
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