Geological travellers in Auvergne, 1751–1800

Abstract

AbstractWithin the half-century after Guettard's epoch-making journey of 1751, geologists came to see the Auvergne region of France as a place of unusual interest for field investigation. This paper reports on an effort to catalogue instances of scientific travel in Auvergne up to the end of the eighteenth century, before observers during the first decade of the nineteenth century (such as von Buch, d'Aubuisson and Ramond) validated the establishment of Auvergne as an iconic place for geologists. In addition to those who ventured into Auvergne to investigate its geology, a significant number of the eighteenth-century observers were residents of Auvergne; these are tabulated separately from those journeying from elsewhere. Published results of Auvergne observations accomplished by 1800 suggest that the Auvergne geological phenomena were already becoming fixed as part of the geological traveller's canonical itinerary.