(in my own opinion) history of fifteenth century
Florentine Art, in six octavo volumes; an analysis of the Attic art
of the fifth century B.C. in three volumes; an exhaustive history
of northern thirteenth-century art, in ten volumes; a life of Sir
Walter Scott, with analysis of modern epic art, in seven volumes; a
life of Xenophon, with analysis of the general principles of
education, in ten volumes; a commentary on Hesiod, with final
analysis of the principles of Political Economy, in nine volumes;
and a general description of the geology and botany of the Alps, in
twenty-four volumes."

The estimate of volumes was--perhaps--in jest; but the plans for
harvesting his material were in earnest.

"Proserpina"--so named from the Flora of the Greeks, the daughter of
Demeter, Mother Earth--grew out of notes already begun in 1866. It was
little like an ordinary botany book;--that was to be expected. It did
not dissect plants; it did not give chemical or histological analysis:
but with bright and curious fancy, with the most ingenious diagrams and
perfect drawings--beautifully engraved by Burgess and Allen--illustrated
the mystery of growth in plants and the tender beauty of their form.
Though this was not science, in strict terms it was a field of work
which no one but Ruskin had cultivated. He was helped by a few
scientific men like Professor Oliver, who saw a value in his line of
thought, and showed a kindly interest in it.

"Deucalion"--from the mythical creator of human life out of stones--was
begun as a companion work: to be published in parts, as the repertory
of Oxford lectures on Alpine form, and notes on all kinds of kindred
subjects. For instance, before that hasty journey to Sheffield he gave a
lecture at the London Institution on "Precious Stones" (February 17th,
repeated March 28th, 1876. A lecture on a similar subject was given to
the boys of Christ's Hospital on April 15th). This lecture, called "The
Iris of the Earth," stood first in Part III. of "Deucalion": and the
work went on, in studies of the forms of silica, on the lines marked out
ten years before in the papers on Banded and Brecciated Concretions; now
carried forward with much kind help from the Rev. J. Clifton Ward, of
the Geological Survey, and Mr. Henry Willett, F.G.S., of Brighton.

On the way home over the Simplon in May and June, 1877, travelling first
with Signor Alessandri, and then with Mr. G.