ion; that, in general, artists seeking for
the noblest hill scenery, will also get among such rocks, and that
therefore I judged it best to explain their structure completely, merely
alluding (in Chap. X. Sec. 7) to the curious results of cross cleavage
among the softer slates, and leaving the reader to pursue the inquiry,
if he cared to do so; although, in reality, it matters very little to
the artist whether the slaty cleavage be across the beds or not, for to
him the cleavage itself is always the important matter, and the
stratification, if contrary to it, is usually so obscure as to be
naturally, and therefore properly, lost sight of. And touching the
disputed question whether the micaceous arrangements of metamorphic
rocks are the results of subsequent crystallization, or of aqueous
deposition, I had no special call to speak: the whole subject appeared
to me only more mysterious the more I examined it; but my own
impressions were always strongly for the aqueous deposition; nor in such
cases as that of the beds of the Matterhorn (drawn in Plate +39+),
respecting which, somewhat exceptionally, I have allowed myself to
theorize a little, does the matter appear to me disputable.

And I was confirmed in this feeling by De Saussure; the only writer
whose help I did not refuse in the course of these inquiries. _His_ I
received for this reason,--all other geological writers whose works I
had examined were engaged in the maintenance of some theory or other,
and always gathering materials to support it. But I found Saussure had
gone to the Alps as I desired to go myself, only to _look_ at them, and
describe them as they were, loving them heartily--loving them, the
positive Alps, more than himself, or than science, or than any theories
of science; and I found his descriptions, therefore, clear, and
trustworthy; and that when I had not visited any place myself,
Saussure's report upon it might always be received without question.

Not but that Saussure himself has a pet theory, like other human beings;
only it is quite subordinate to his love of the Alps: He is a steady
advocate of the aqueous crystallization of rocks, and never loses a fair
opportunity of a blow at the Huttonians; but his opportunities are
always _fair_, his description of what he sees is wholly impartial; it
is only when he gets home and arranges his papers that he puts in the
little aqueously inclined paragraphs, and never a paragraph without just
cause. He