Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER H. STUDIES AND DREAMS. In the summer of 1789, Campe. who had been for some years canon and councillor in Brunswick, determined to make a trip to Paris, to be present at the funeral of French despotism, and it was deemed advisable for William to accompany him. They arrived in Paris on the 3d of August. Not being fortunate enough while there to follow Tyranny to its grave, Campe revenged his disappointment by doing what most authors would have done in his place—he wrote patriotic letters in favor of the revolution, and attracted much attention. Alexander remained behind, probably at Gottingen, pursuing his favorite studies, and constantly corresponding with Forster, who was then at Mayence, where he was councillor and librarian of the University. The plan of the great transatlantic journey, formed a year or two before, was laid aside for a time, in order that he might study what was then a new science—Geology. He was deep in the writings of the then celebrated geologist, Abraham Gottlob Werner. In his peculiar department of science Werner was undoubtedly the most remarkable man of his time. The son of a poor iron-worker, he commenced his career as a 18 WEKNEK, THE GEOLOGIST. mineralogist in the Mineralogical Academy of Freyberg, before he was out of his teens. From thence he went to Leipsic, where he busied himself in defining the external character of minerals, experimenting, and eventually, in 1774, publishing a work on the subject Up to that time the descriptive language of mineralogists had been too indefinite to convey accurate information, or to enable those of different countries to understand each other. After publishing this work, which was long a manual, Werner returned to the Mineralogical Academy at Freyberg, and took charge of its noble cabinet of...