“ These journeys led Scheuchzer to almost every part of Switzerland, particularly its central and eastern districts. Apropos of his visit (1705) to the Rhone glacier, he inserts a full account of the other Swiss glaciers, as far as they were then known, while in 1706, after mentioning certain wonders to be seen in the museum at Lucerne, he adds reports byimen of good faith who had seen dragons in Switzerland. ”

“ He doubts their existence, but illustrates the reports by fanciful representations of dragons, which have led some modern writers to depreciate his merits as a traveller and naturalist, for the belief in dragons was then widely spread. In 1712 he published a map of Switzerland in four sheets (scale 1/290,000) , of which the east portion (based on his personal observations) is far the most accurate, though the map as a whole was the best map of Switzerland till the end of the 18th century. ”

“ The first of the three parts of the last named work deals with the Swiss mountains (summing up all that was then known about them, and serving as a link between Simler’s work of 1574 and Gruner’s of 1760) , the second with the Swiss rivers, lakes and mineral baths, and the third with Swiss meteorology and geology. Scheuchzer’s works, as issued in 1746 and in 1752, formed (with Tschudi’s Chronicum Helveticum) one of the chief sources for Schiller’s play of Wilhelm Tell (1804) . In 1704 Scheuchzer was elected a F.R.S. ”