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LIFE, LETTERS, AND WORKS 
 OF LOUIS AGASSIZ 
 
jpm 
 
Louis AcASbiz 
 
LIFE, LETTERS, AND WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 LOUIS AGASSIZ 
 
 s|f 
 
 BY 
 
 JULES MARCOU 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Vol. I 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND LONDON 
 
 I896 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
Copyright, 1895, 
 By MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 Norixrooti Iprrss 
 
 J. S. Cushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith 
 Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 More than twenty years have passed since the death 
 of Louis Agassiz, and although many biographies were 
 published directly after his death, no true life of him 
 has yet appeared : nearly all have been too eulogistic, 
 while, on the other hand, some rather severe strictures 
 and criticisms have incidentally appeared in articles 
 purporting to give the life of some of his associates, 
 or dealing with some special questions of natural his- 
 tory. Agassiz occupied too large and important a place 
 in natural history not to have left both a certain num- 
 ber of critics and a larger number of enthusiastic ad- 
 mirers ready to see in him only faults or perfection. 
 Truth lies between the two. As one of the reviewers 
 of Agassiz's life by his wife says : " The true history 
 of Agassiz has not yet been written." 
 
 To meet this want, I have made during the last 
 twenty years a large collection of material in the form 
 of letters, recollections of friends and contemporaries, 
 and rare pamphlets, with the design of presenting to 
 the public the man himself ; his origin, his character, 
 his public life, his private life, his passions, his weak- 
 nesses, his faults, his errors, his genius ; what he did 
 and what he left undone ; above all, to put him in his 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 place, in a true light, in correct perspective, with its 
 lights and shadows, in the field of the history of natural 
 science. 
 
 I have tried to speak of him uninfluenced by the dis- 
 cordant voices which have celebrated his merits without 
 discretion, or demolished his reputation without meas- 
 ure. I lis faults were small, while his genius was great. 
 • Son envergure immense allant d'un bout a l'autre du 
 ciel scientifique," as was said also of Humboldt and 
 Cuvier. 
 
 I enjoyed his friendship during almost thirty years, 
 being one of the few men to whom Agassiz half 
 unbosomed himself ; and I am the last survivor of the 
 small band of European naturalists who came to Amer- 
 ica with him. My admiration of the man is not con- 
 cealed ; but I have had constantly in view the truth, and 
 have tried to be just, not only towards him, but also 
 towards all those who were more or less connected with 
 him during his scientific life. 
 
 In the thought of many, a man of genius ought to 
 be perfect ; and consequently when errors, mistakes, 
 and faults appear, it is difficult to accept them and 
 bear them with equanimity and indulgence. But we 
 must be generous, and make a fair allowance for human 
 weakness, even in a man of genius, and especially in 
 a man of genius. 
 
 Agassiz kept up all his life a very large correspond- 
 ence, either directly, or when too busy or in ill health, 
 by dictation. In Neuchatel he wrote at least five let- 
 ters daily, not only to naturalists, savants in general, 
 and to his relatives, but also to other friends, and 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 even statesmen and historians like Thiers and Guizot in 
 France, and later to Dom Pedro II, in Brazil. The num- 
 ber of his letters is enormous, and until 1842 he kept 
 copies of them all. I know of one. of his correspond- 
 ents who received more than one hundred letters from 
 him. To choose among them is not an easy task. Mrs. 
 Agassiz, in the life of her husband, has given a certain 
 number (about ninety), selecting more especially those 
 addressed to Agassiz's mother, father, and brother, and 
 to some well-known men of science, philosophers, phil- 
 anthropists, and politicians ; besides giving letters writ- 
 ten to Agassiz by naturalists like Humboldt, Cuvier, 
 Buckland, Sedgwick, Lyell, etc. Unwilling to repeat 
 what has been already so well done by Mrs. Agassiz, 
 my quotations are limited to letters of Agassiz, 
 addressed to practical naturalists, his contemporaries, 
 working on kindred subjects. To see and appreciate 
 the influence exerted by Agassiz on the progress of 
 palaeontology, geology, and the glacial question, it 
 is important to show his impressions at the very 
 moment when he received them in the course of his 
 studies. 
 
 I have received much information, and copies of let- 
 ters and notes, from persons or families formerly in 
 correspondence with Agassiz. I beg them to receive 
 my thanks ; and I have especially to thank my good 
 friend, M. Auguste Mayor, of Neuchatel, first cousin 
 of Agassiz. Although some years younger than Louis 
 Agassiz, he knew him as a very young man, and fol- 
 lowed closely his eventful and splendid career dur- 
 ing his whole life, both in Europe and in America, 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 for M. Mayor lived for more than twenty years in 
 Brooklyn, New York, and received Agassiz at his house 
 when he came to the New World. Each had perfect 
 confidence in the other; as cousins and friends they 
 loved one another without reserve. For myself, I can- 
 not separate Louis Agassiz from Auguste Mayor. Such 
 friendly and constant relations in both hemispheres 
 between two men are extremely rare. 
 
 I have carefully read and considered all documents, 
 and have made constant use of my intimate knowledge 
 of Agassiz. Scientifically we did not agree on all 
 points; but both were satisfied to accept our differences 
 of opinions. On the whole, our friendship was never 
 shadowed by a single serious disagreement. 
 
 The biography of such a man as Agassiz cannot be 
 given by the publication of his letters only ; because in 
 letters the confidences are not so free, precise, or so 
 full as can be desired : besides, many letters, for various 
 reasons, cannot be published in full. Agassiz's genius 
 was so spontaneous, so frankly natural, so absolutely 
 sincere, that his physiognomy was most attractive, show- 
 ing always the great mobility of his sentiments. He 
 was one of those very few men whose works are not 
 sufficient to make him entirely known ; one must meet 
 him face to face. Agassiz was so full of personal in- 
 spiration and original thought, that in order to have a 
 just idea of him, naturalists went to Neuchatel, and 
 afterward to Cambridge, only to see him, and shake his 
 hand. His individuality was a subject of continual 
 observation by all those who surrounded or approached 
 him. He was of an extremely rare and very complex 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 type. It is impossible to group round him other natu- 
 ralists, and to form a special class of spirits related 
 to his. He surprised every one by his constant watch- 
 fulness, and his quickness to get at the truth of nature. 
 Agassiz himself was more interesting than his works. 
 His life is a rare study. 
 
 Until 1838, he wrote with his own hand an enormous 
 amount of manuscript; nothing discouraged him, and 
 he was always ready to use his pen, even to copy 
 papers or books which he was too poor to purchase, or 
 which it was impossible to procure otherwise. He kept 
 a private* journal, in which he wrote with great naivete 
 everything which occurred to him, or came under his 
 eyes, when at Bienne, Lausanne, Zurich, Heidelberg, 
 Orbe, Munich, Concise, Paris, and during the first two 
 years of his life at Neuchatel. He showed me this 
 journal, and I had the privilege of reading in it some 
 of his student adventures and escapades. I do not 
 know what has become of the manuscript. 
 
 Agassiz, from his youth until his last illness, was over- 
 flowing with intellectual spirit and vitality. He is a 
 rare example of manly qualities and activities. His 
 influence on the progress and diffusion of natural his- 
 tory is second to none. 
 
 I have tried to bring him before the reader as I have 
 known him. If I do not produce an exact portrait oi 
 the man and his life, it is due simply to my inability to 
 express my feeling for the man and his works. Born 
 at the foot of the Jura Mountains like Agassiz, and not 
 far from his birthplace, I passed my youth and was 
 educated under much the same circumstances as he, 
 
x PREFACE. 
 
 and ought to be able to deal with the difficult task of 
 writing his biography, for I have had unusual opportu- 
 nities to know him and his surroundings in the Old 
 and New Worlds. I can truly say that the task of 
 writing his life has been a work of friendly love and 
 respect for the man, and of justice to the savant. 
 
 My aim has been constantly to make a judicious 
 blending of history, correspondence, and extracts from 
 his works, and of the estimation in which these are held 
 by others. Mrs. Agassiz's account of her husband's life 
 gives the character of Agassiz by means of a list of 
 qualities rather than a complete picture. As is very 
 likely to happen, her biography is rather a panegyric 
 than an analysis of character. I have her example con- 
 stantly before my eyes, in my endeavour not to fall into 
 the same error ; as Massimo d'Azelio says : " I must 
 be honest, not only with the reader, but with myself ; 
 otherwise I should be treating the life of Agassiz like 
 a half-decayed peach, the spoilt part of which I should 
 cut out, and present only the sound portion." 
 
 Without passing over in silence the moral failings of 
 the man, and the inequalities of talent of the naturalist, 
 I have expressed all my admiration for this master of 
 natural history. The unity which is not to be found in 
 his acts or in his works will be found in his iron will ; 
 he had a fixed idea — he wished to be the " first natural- 
 ist of his time," as he said in a letter to his father, when 
 he was still a student at Munich. 
 
 Although Agassiz was very ready to care for his own 
 interests, he never was a practical man, in the full 
 business sense of the word. Unable to choose suitable 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 men as assistants and co-workers, he was very prompt 
 to make use of them, whenever they were competent. 
 
 I shall finish with a French sentence, very appropri- 
 ate to the Franco-Swiss savant, educated as a naturalist 
 in Germany, a constant admirer and pupil of Cuvier, 
 and finally a naturalized American. Agassiz "restera 
 une personnalite populaire et sympathique. A mesure 
 que ses defauts et ses faiblesses diminuent dans l'eloigne- 
 ment, ses qualites maitresses apparaissent plus eclatantes 
 et font oublier tout le reste : il avait la foi, la vie, la 
 chaleur, l'enthousiasme, la passion, et surtout ce qui le 
 rendait eminement sympathique, il ne connaissait pas 
 le fiel, l'envie, la rancune et la haine." 
 
 Cambridge, Massachusetts, 
 March, 1895. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 French was the native tongue of Louis Agassiz. 
 His remarkable and admirable mother knew neither 
 English nor German, but wrote French with great 
 purity and choice of expression. As one of the family 
 in Switzerland writes me, " ses lettres sont charmantes, 
 elle ecrivait a merveille." All the great works of 
 Agassiz, on which his reputation as an original natu- 
 ralist is based, are in the French language. The most 
 active part of his life, as regards great discoveries, was 
 spent at Neuchatel, then a small town, where French is 
 the only language spoken. Before he came to America, 
 all his correspondence with English naturalists was in 
 French ; so that it is almost impossible entirely to sup- 
 press this language in writing an accurate and true life 
 of him. Translations, however good, never give an 
 exact idea of what the author means, especially in 
 the case of difficult and delicate observations in natural 
 history. 
 
 After long consideration, I have, therefore, concluded 
 to give what I quote of his correspondence in the origi- 
 nal. All English-speaking naturalists read French now. 
 As the interest of such a book is limited to naturalists 
 and persons whose education leads them to read and 
 
 xiii 
 
x i v IXTROD UCTION. 
 
 appreciate the life of an extraordinary man, a few let- 
 ters and quotations in French, scattered through the 
 work, will present no difficulties to its readers. On the 
 ■ntrarv, they will be a sort of stimulant and a relish, 
 both scientifically and from a literary point of view. 
 
 For the same reason, an address — the most impor- 
 tant of the many delivered by Agassiz — has been 
 reproduced in the original. It is his celebrated dis- 
 course of 1837, on a "Great Ice-age." 
 
 During the period from his twenty-third to his fortieth 
 year, Agassiz wrote many letters in German, mainly of 
 a private nature, addressed to members of his German 
 family or to a few most intimate friends. Almost all 
 his scientific letters were directed to his old professor 
 at Heidelberg, H. G. Bronn, and have been published 
 in the " Neues Jahrbuch fur Mineralogie, Geologie und 
 Petrefaktenkunde." Although he was a perfect master 
 of German, speaking and writing it like a native of 
 Heidelberg or Munich, he never published important 
 papers in that language, only a few pamphlets, the 
 principal one being his reply to Karl Schimper's claims, 
 4 pp. 4to. 
 
 Agassiz's remarkable personality cannot be properly 
 understood without taking into account the strength of 
 his French nature. A Franco-Swiss he was born ; and 
 a Franco-Swiss he remained all his life, notwithstanding 
 his American naturalization and his great admiration 
 of the New World in general, and of the United States 
 in particular. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 1807-1827. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Ancestry — Origin of the Name Agassiz — Coat-of-Arms — Boy- 
 hood — Motier-en-Vuly — Reputation of Louis's Father as a 
 Teacher — College of Bienne — Vintage-time at Motier — Some 
 Peculiarities in the Character of Louis Agassiz — College Studies 
 at Lausanne — His Resolution to be a Naturalist — University of 
 Zurich — His First Teacher of Zoology, M. Schinz — " First at Work 
 and first at Play ! " — University of Heidelberg — Alexander Braun, 
 Karl Schimper, and Agassiz — First Visit to the Braun Family at 
 Carlsruhe — Typhoid Fever — His Stay at Orbe 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 1827-1831. 
 
 Journey from Carlsruhe to Munich — His Evolution from a French- 
 Swiss to a German Student — His Duel at Heidelberg — Univer- 
 sity of Munich — Doctor of Philosophy — Martius's Proposal to 
 publish Spix's Fishes from Brazil — Publication of his First Great 
 Work on Natural History — Doctor of Medicine and Surgery — 
 Beginning of his Researches on the " Poissons Fossiles " — His 
 Method of publishing his Works — His Desire to be the First 
 Naturalist of his Time — Visit to Vienna — Return Home with 
 Artist Dinkel — Life at Concise — Christinat — Opportune Help 
 for a Trip to Paris — His Journey "en Zig-zag" by way of 
 Carlsruhe ........... 20 
 
 xv 
 
X vi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 1831-1832. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 First Visit to Paris — His Relations with Cuvier — Humboldt charmed 
 with him — His Visit to the Seashore at Dieppe — Death of 
 ( U vicr — Sketch of Cuvier's Life — Cuvier and Geoffroy St. Hilaire 
 
 — Their Discussion before the French Academy of Science — 
 :vier's Influence on Agassiz — Difficulty of getting an Official 
 
 Position in Paris — Appointed Professor at the Lyceum of Neu- 
 chatel ............ 3" 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1832-1835. 
 
 Agassiz's First Establishment at Neuchatel — Foundation of the 
 '• >ociete des Sciences Naturelles," on the 6th of December, 1832 
 
 — An Offer of a Chair at the University of Pleidelberg declined — 
 Letter of Humboldt — Engagement of Alexander Braun with Miss 
 Cecile Guyot and that of Karl Schimper with Miss Emmy Braun 
 broken off — Marriage of Agassiz with Miss Cecile Braun — Publi- 
 cation of the First Part of the "Fossil Fishes" — First Visit to 
 England in 1834 — "Monographic des Echinodermes " — Des 
 Moulins's Work on the Same Subject — Criticisms of Humboldt 
 and von Buch — Second Visit to England in 1835 — Birth of a 
 Son — Four Letters to Pictet and Nicolet . . . . -5° 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 1836-1837. 
 
 The Wollaston Medal — First Paper of de Charpentier on the Glacial 
 Theory — Venetz's Observations on Large Boulders perched on 
 the Sides of the Alpine Valleys — Dr. Hermann Lebert, the First 
 Disciple and Pupil of de Charpentier and Venetz — Extract from 
 de Charpentier's First Paper — Agassiz's Summer Vacation at Bex, 
 near the House of de Charpentier — Conversion of Agassiz to the 
 (ilacial Theory; his Creation of the Ice-age — Karl Schimper 
 visits Agassiz at Bex and at Neuchatel — Discours de Neuchatel 
 July 24, 1837, on the Ice-age . . . . . . -7-' 
 
CONTENTS. xvii 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 1 836-1 837 {continued) and 1838. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Discussion raised by Agassiz's Discourse at Neuchatel — Agassiz's 
 Great Reputation at the Early Age of Thirty Years — Death of his 
 Father — Laurillard the Assistant of Cuvier — The Establishment 
 of Hercule Nicolet's Lithography at Neuchatel — Dr. Vogt of 
 Berne sends Agassiz Edward Desor as a Secretary — Offer of a 
 Chair at the Academies of Geneva and Lausanne — First Visit to 
 the Bernese Alps — Two Letters to Jules Thurmann — A Visit to 
 Chamounix — The Meeting of the Geological Society of France at 
 Porrentruy — First Use of Lithochromy for the Plates of Fossil 
 Fishes — The Geologist Armand Gressly — Agassiz created a 
 " Bourgeois " of Neuchatel — Organization of an Academy at 
 Neuchatel 109 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 1 839- 1 840. 
 
 Agassiz's Scientific Activity ; the Help rendered by his Secretary 
 Desor — An Interesting Business Letter to Pictet — Dispute with 
 Edward Charlesworth about the French and German Translation 
 of Sowerby's " Mineral Conchology" — Visit to the Monte Rosa 
 and the Matterhorn — The Geologist Voltz of Strasbourg — Stu- 
 der's Conversion to the Glacial Doctrine — Old Glaciers in the 
 Vosges — Search on the Glacier of the Aar for Hugi's Old Cabin 
 — Karl Vogt's Arrival as Assistant to Agassiz — The Household 
 and Laboratory of Agassiz at Neuchatel — The " Echinodermes 
 fossiles de la Suisse " — " Etudes sur les Glaciers " — The " Essai 
 sur les Glaciers," by de Charpentier — Letter of Agassiz to de Char- 
 pentier — The "Hotel des Neuchatelois " on the Aar Glacier — 
 Visit of Mrs. Agassiz and Alexander to the Glacier — Journey to 
 England — The Glacial Theory in England — Agassiz's Discovery 
 of Ancient Glaciers in Scotland, Ireland, and England — Letter to 
 Humboldt 137 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 1841-1842. 
 
 Visit during the Winter to the Aar Glacier — Letters to Jules Thur- 
 mann and to Eugenio Sismonda — " Monographic d'Echinodermes 
 
xviii CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 vivants et fossiles" — Letter to Deshayes — Another Letter to 
 Thurmann — Visit of James D. Forbes at the "Hotel des NeuchS- 
 telois*' — Ascent of the Jungfrau — Other Visitors at the "Hotel 
 des Neuch&telois " — Forbes at Neuchatel and La Chaux-de-fonds 
 
 — Inauguration of the Academy of Neuchatel, 18th of November, 
 1S41 — Agassiz's Letter to the Rector of the Academy — His Ap- 
 pointment as Rector for the Vear 1 842-1 843 — Controversy with 
 James D. Forbes on the Laminated Structure of Glaciers — A New 
 Cabin to replace the " H8tel des Neuchatelois " — Stay at the Aar 
 ( ilarier from the Beginning of July, 1842, to the Middle of Septem- 
 ber — Discoveries of John Tyndall — Dispute with Karl Schimper 
 
 — Daniel Dullfus-Ausset . . . . . . . . 1 75 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 1 843- 1 844. 
 
 " Recherches sur les Poissons Fossiles," 1833-1843 — Review of it by 
 Jules Pictet de la Rive — Dr. A. Giinther's Opinion — Agassiz's 
 Errors with the Eocene Fossil Fishes of Glaris (Switzerland) — 
 The Part taken by Collaborators in the " Poissons Fossiles " — 
 Another Visit to the Glacier of the Aar — The Meeting of the 
 Helvetic Society at Lausanne, July, 1843 — Agassiz's Hospitality 
 at Neuchatel — False Position of his Secretary, Desor, and his 
 Assistant, Vogt — Scientific Life in Neuchatel — " Monographies 
 des Poissons Fossiles du Vieux Gres Rouge," 1844 — The' Geol- 
 ogist and Stonecutter, Hugh Miller — " Histoire Naturelle des 
 Poissons d'Eau douce" — Karl Vogt leaves Agassiz — Extraordi- 
 nary Session of the Geological Society of France at Chambery 
 (Savoy) — Failure of Nicolet's Lithographic Establishment — 
 Dinkel leaves Neuchatel — Illness of Gressly . . . .211 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 1845. 
 
 "Monographic des Myes," 1842- 1845 — The " Nomenclator Zoolo- 
 gicus," 1842-1845 — " Bibliographia Zoologize et Geologise" — 
 " Iconographie des Coquilles tertiaires reputees Identiques avec les 
 Especes Vivantes," etc. — The Two Translations of Sowerby's 
 "Mineral Conchology of Great Britain" — Actual Mercantile 
 
CONTENTS. xix 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Value of Agassiz's Publications — Agassiz's Family come to his 
 Help — Great Credit due to Neuchatel and its Inhabitants — 
 Agassiz's Last Series of Lectures : " Notice sur la Geographie des 
 Animaux " — Intimate Friendship with Jules Pictet de la Rive — 
 Agassiz's Last Visit to the Aar Glacier — The Meeting of the 
 Helvetic Society of Natural Sciences at Geneva, August, 1845 — 
 A Letter to Pictet, with Biographical Remarks — Biography of 
 Agassiz by Pictet — Agassiz returns all the Specimens borrowed 
 for his Great Pakeontological Works 239 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 1846. 
 
 Departure from Neuchatel, March, 1846 — Arrival in Paris and 
 Sojourn at the " Hotel du Jardin du Roi " — " Nouvelles Etudes 
 sur les Glaciers actuels " — The Glacial Theory before the Geo- 
 logical Society of France, at the Meeting of" the 6th of April, 1846 
 — Agassiz's " Catalogue Raisonne des Echinodermes " — His 
 Work in the " Galerie de Zoologie " and among the Private Collec- 
 tions of Brongniart, de France, Deshayes, d'Orbigny, de Verneuil, 
 etc. — Desor's Presumption, in putting his Name on the Title 
 Page, without Agassiz's Knowledge — Attentions paid to Agassiz 
 by Thiers — Indirect Offer of Official Positions at Paris declined — 
 Short Visit to England, to meet Charles Lyell — On a Cunard 
 Steamship from Liverpool to Boston 258 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 1846 {continued)-!^*] , 
 
 Arrival in America, and Reception by Mr. John A. Lowell — Condition 
 of Natural History in the United States — ■ His First Visit to New- 
 York — His Acquaintance with Dr. Samuel Morton, of Philadelphia 
 — Collections of Captain Wilkes made during his Expedition 
 round the World, seen at Washington — Science at the Capital 
 of the United States — Agassiz's First Series of Lectures before 
 the Lowell Institute at Boston — His Success — A Course on the 
 Glaciers, in French — Frank de Pourtales joins him — Charles- 
 ton, South Carolina — His Observations on the Negroes — I lis Dis- 
 
xx CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 approval of Slavery — Arrival at New York of his Two Assistants, 
 Desor and (liranl — Establishment at East Boston — Sickness of 
 Agassiz — I lis Hospitality — A Visit to Niagara Palls — On Board 
 the United States Coast Survey Steamer, the Bibb — Arrival of 
 Minister Charles Louis Philippe Christinat — First Difficulties with 
 his Secretary — Two letters to J. Marcou, extending an Invitation 
 to join him ........... 279 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Vol. I. 
 
 Portrait of Louis Agassiz, 1872 . . . Frontispiece 
 Sketch Map of Part of Switzerland 6 
 
 Hotel des Neuchatelois, August, 1842 . . . .201 
 
 XXI 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 1807-1827. 
 
 Ancestry — Origin of the Name Agassiz — Coat-of-Arms — Boyhood 
 
 — motier-en-vuly — reputation of louis's father as a teacher 
 
 — College of Bienne — Vintage-time at Motier — Some Peculi- 
 arities in the Character of Louis Agassiz — College Studies 
 at Lausanne — His Resolution to be a Naturalist — University 
 of Zurich — His First Teacher of Zoology, M. Schinz — "First 
 at Work and first at Play ! " — University of Heidelberg — 
 Alexander Braun, Karl Schimper, and Agassiz — First Visit 
 to the Braun Family at Carlsruhe — Typhoid Fever — His 
 Stay at Orbe. 
 
 The Agassiz family came originally from Orbe and 
 the small village of Bavois, in the "Jura Vaudois." A 
 little west of Orbe there is a small hamlet, called Agiez 
 or Agiz. In old French, and more especially in the 
 patois of the Canton de Vaud, Agiz, Agiez, Agasse, 
 Agassiz, and Aigasse 1 mean "magpie," a bird which 
 was and is still very common in the country around 
 Orbe and La Sarraz. In low Latin, magpie is Agasia ; 
 in Provencal, Agazia, or Agassa, and Agasse ; while in 
 Burgundy and Franche-Comte it is Aiguaisse. Obvi- 
 
 1 "Agassiz ou Agasses ou Agaisse; dans toute la France ces trois nonis 
 signifient Pie. Autrefois Agassiz s'ecrivait un peu differement Agacie. 
 C'etait un surnom donne jadis aux querelleurs, dit-on, et aussi aux grands 
 causeurs. — On sait combien la Pie est jaseuse." (See " Dictionnaire des 
 noms," par Loredan-Larchey, p. 4, Paris, 1SS0.) 
 B I 
 
2 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. i. 
 
 ously the name of the family was derived from the 
 name of the bird ; as evidence of this, the old armoiries 
 or coat-of-arms of the Agassiz family is a black magpie 
 on a silver ground {Pie noire sur fond d' argent), a 
 drawing of which may be seen on the title-page. It is 
 still preserved in the family in Switzerland, which also 
 possesses an old seal, engraved on copper, with the 
 same bird in the centre. Formerly, among all French- 
 speaking peoples it was the custom for ennobled 
 burghers to adopt for their coat-of-arms what was 
 called " armes parlantes," and the Agassiz of Orbe 
 chose the magpie. 
 
 Originally, the name was doubtless given to one 
 inclined to talk a little too much, — as the French 
 proverb has it, "bavard comme une pie." 
 
 One of the most faithful correspondents and best 
 friends of Agassiz, Sir Philip de Grey Egerton, the 
 great English paleoichthyologist, an excellent French 
 scholar, used often to call him " Mon cher Agass " as a 
 reminder of his knowledge of old French and patois. 
 
 The name Agassiz is not very rare, and is found 
 among French people not connected in any way with 
 the original family of Louis Agassiz. However, a 
 branch of his family emigrated to London, and some 
 fifty or more years ago a family of bankers of the 
 name of Agassiz was there, who occasionally corre- 
 sponded with their relatives of the Canton de Vaud. 
 One of them published, in 1833, a book of travels under 
 the title, " Journey to Switzerland and Pedestrian Tours 
 in that Country" (London, 8vo), a work which is some- 
 times wrongly attributed to Louis Agassiz. 
 
1807-27.] ORIGIN OF THE NAME AGASSIZ. 3 
 
 At the beginning of this century there was in Paris 
 a M. Agasse, a publisher and bookseller, who published 
 in 1804 the third edition of "La Flore francaise," by 
 Lamarck and De Candolle. 
 
 The celebrated La Fontaine, in his fable " L'Aigle et 
 la Pie," says: — 
 
 " L'aigle, reine des airs, avec Margot la pie, 
 Differentes d'humeur, de langage, et d'esprit, 
 Et d'habit, 
 Traversaient un bout de prairie. 
 Le hazard les assemble en un coin detourne. 
 L' Agasse 1 eut peur ; mais TAigle ayant fort bien dine*, 
 La rassure, et lui dit : ' Allons de compagnie ; 
 Si le maitre des dieux assez souvent s"ennuie, 
 Lui qui gouverne l'univers, 
 
 J'en puis bien faire autant, moi qu'on sait qui le sers. 
 Entretenez-moi done, et sans ceremonie. 1 
 Caquet-bon-bec alors de jaser au plus dru, 
 Sur ceci, sur cela, sur tout. L'homme d'Horace, 
 Disant le bien, le mal, a travers champs, n'eut su 
 Ce qu'en fait de babil y savait notre Agasse." 
 
 The name is also found in Italy, but omits the z at 
 the end. 
 
 In the Arabic or Mauresque and Saracenic language 
 the expression " Kol-Agassiz " means wing-leader, a 
 sort of field officer occupying a position between captain 
 and major, called in Turkish " Bin-Bashi." So in 
 Arabic Agassiz means conductor, leader. The origin of 
 the Swiss name evidently differs from that of the 
 Mauresque and Saracenic word. 
 
 1 " Agasse, vieux mot qui vient de l'italien gazza, signifiant Pie." 
 
4 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. i. 
 
 That the Agassiz were descendants of French Hu- 
 guenots, and were obliged to leave France at the 
 revocation of the " edit de Nantes," is a tradition with- 
 out any solid basis of fact to rest upon. Indeed, the 
 name Agassiz existed as far back as the thirteenth 
 century in the Canton de Vaud ; but it is impossible to 
 trace the family, because all the papers belonging to 
 the Agassiz were destroyed in a fire at the parsonage 
 of Constantine, in the Canton de Vaud, where the 
 grandfather of Louis was settled as pastor, — a pro- 
 fession followed in the family for five generations. 
 
 Very likely an Agassiz married a French Huguenot ; 
 for at the time of the revocation the French Protestant 
 exiles flocked into Switzerland, and settled in large 
 numbers at Orbe and in the environs ; almost com- 
 pletely filling the villages now known as Ballaigues, 
 Vallorbe, and La Vallee de Joux, and it is possible that 
 an Agassiz married among them ; which may account 
 for the tradition. 
 
 There is much to favour the belief in a connection of 
 the Agassiz with some French family of the Cevennes, 
 or of Provence ; for the extraordinary imagination of 
 Louis Agassiz points to a close connection with the 
 children of sunny Provence, so well portrayed by 
 Alphonse Daudet in his series of romances on Tartarin 
 of Tarascon. 
 
 The family features are, however, entirely Swiss, and 
 even Jurassic. In general, they are broad shouldered, 
 thickly built, bony, with fair-coloured faces, and rather 
 slow in their movements, — a type very frequently met 
 .all along the foot of the mountains of the Jura, more 
 
1807-27.] BOYHOOD. 5 
 
 especially from Bicnnc down to Orbc and " la perte du 
 Rhone." 
 
 The father of Louis was called Rodolphe Benjamin 
 Louis; he was born March 3, 1776, and died Sept. 6, 
 1837. His mother, Rose Mayor, was born July 11, 
 1783, and died Nov. 11, 1867. Jean Louis Rodolphe 
 Agassiz was born May 28, 1807, at the parsonage of 
 Motier-en-Vuly, on the Lake of Morat, Canton of Fri- 
 bourg. He was the fifth child, but the four others hav- 
 ing died in their infancy, Louis Agassiz was the eldest 
 child. As is the custom among all French-speaking 
 people, he never used his full Christian name, but 
 signed himself simply Louis Agassiz. 
 
 At the beginning of this century, and before coming 
 to the parish of Motier, his father had been pastor at 
 St. Imier, then a very poor and remote valley, lost 
 among the mountains of the Jura. The loss of his 
 children, one after another, and the great isolation of 
 St. Imier, far away from his kindred and friends, led 
 him to look for a better parish, and, in 1806, he came 
 to Motier, 1 first as a " suffragan " (assistant) of the titu- 
 lar minister, J. R. Martin; afterward, on Aug. 31, 1810, 
 he was elected " pasteur " (minister). 
 
 The parish of Motier consists of four small villages, 
 located at the eastern foot of Mont Vuly, on the Lake 
 of Morat, and containing in all five hundred inhabitants. 
 Singularly enough, Vuly belongs to the Roman Catho- 
 
 1 The name is sometimes spelled Motiers, and to distinguish it from 
 another Motiers in the Val Travers, it is called Motier-en-Vully. The 
 spelling varies as well for Vully as for Motier, Motiers, or Moutiers, and is 
 written sometimes Vuilly, Vuly, or Vully. 
 
6 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. i. 
 
 lie Canton of Fribourg ; but in consequence of its situa- 
 tion on the extreme frontier of the Canton of Berne, it 
 was invested with the right of com-burghership, " corn- 
 bourgeoisie," with Berne. 
 
 When, in 1530, the celebrated reformer, Farel, suc- 
 ceeded in converting the parish of Motier, the council 
 of Fribourg complained to Berne of his preaching in 
 the Vuly ; deputies were sent therefore from Berne 
 to meet at Morat together with four delegates from 
 the four principal villages of the Vuly, who concluded 
 to put the matter to vote under the direction of " Mes- 
 sieurs de Berne." 1 The reform movement received the 
 majority of votes in the four villages of the Motier 
 parish, and it has ever since been Protestant, notwith- 
 standing the fact that it belongs to a very strong and 
 uncompromising Catholic canton. 
 
 The Vuly is situated at the extreme end of a prom- 
 ontory, surrounded by water on three sides ; on the east 
 by the Lake of Morat, on the north by the river La 
 Broye, and on the west by the Lake of Neuchatel. The 
 Seeland of Berne, comprised between Kersers, Treiten, 
 Aarberg, and Bienne, constitutes, with the lakes of 
 Morat, Neuchatel, and Bienne, a very extensive sheet 
 of water. 
 
 As soon as the young couple had left the trying cli- 
 mate of St. Imier, with its long and very cold winter, 
 and had settled in the fine agricultural district of the 
 Vuly, with its vineyards and orchards, prosperity and 
 happiness greeted them from every direction. Four 
 
 1 A name formerly used among the Swiss who speak the French lan- 
 guage to designate all those in authority in the Canton of Berne. 
 
 
•frj # 
 
 / / Vallorbe 
 
 asarraz 
 
 j>Censeau 
 
 Motier Birthplace of Lout* Ageusia 
 
 Qrbe <£ Buuois Origin u/t/ic A<jn<s!z's family 
 Cuvier -< •. ,. Owner's >• 
 
 Pouotntj i Carmichiol EnTT*. 
 
 Sketch Map of Part of Switzerland. 
 

1807-27.] MOTIER-EN-VULY. 7 
 
 healthy children — two sons, Louis and Auguste, and 
 two daughters, Olympe and Cecile — were born to 
 them ; and although the parish was small and conse- 
 quently of limited means, it was most gratifying to find 
 themselves among relatives and friends ; for pastor 
 Agassiz had resided for some time at Constantine, a 
 village near Avranches, where his father was minister, 
 and it was during his stay there that he became ac- 
 quainted with Miss Rose Mayor, his future wife, who 
 was a daughter of the country physician at Cudrefin, a 
 village only a few miles distant from Motier. It may 
 be said that the inhabitants of the whole peninsula 
 of Vuly, Cudrefin, and Constantine, greeted pastor 
 Agassiz and his wife, as their own people returned. 
 
 Born and educated in such a place as Motier, sur- 
 rounded by water and marshes, with the Oberland 
 always in full view in front, and the summit of the 
 Jura in the rear, it is no wonder that Agassiz became 
 an ichthyologist and a glacialist. Everything which 
 met his eye, from infancy until manhood, seems to 
 have awaked in him a curiosity to know his surround- 
 ings. It was as natural for him to take to the study 
 of fishes and of glaciers as it is for sons of seamen to 
 go to sea, or for "vignerons" (vine-dressers) to go to 
 the vineyard, or for the " gauchos " to ride on the prai- 
 ries of South America, or for the Arabs to cross the 
 desert on camels. It might almost be said that Louis 
 Agassiz, as we shall see more fully by and by, was a re- 
 markable instance of atavism of the Swiss lake-dwellers 
 of prehistoric time. 
 
 Almost as soon as he was able to move alone, lie 
 
8 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. i. 
 
 took naturally to water, like a young duck. All the 
 fishermen became at once very fond of the little fellow, 
 and there was a friendly rivalry among them to get him 
 into their boats and show him how to catch fish. In a 
 relatively short time he became a great favourite, and 
 every one wanted to show the parson's son those neigh- 
 bourly attentions which are of daily occurrence, and form 
 a part, and an important part, of life, among all the 
 country people residing in such isolated places as the 
 Vuly. 
 
 A part of the duty of a minister in Switzerland is to 
 look after the schools and even to take a part, and often 
 not a small one, in the teaching. Parson Agassiz was 
 a very successful and excellent teacher ; indeed, in all 
 his parishes, both at St. Imier and at Motier, and after- 
 ward at Orbe and Concise, his reputation as a teacher 
 was far superior to his reputation as a preacher. 
 
 Louis was by far the best pupil of his father ; for not 
 only did he learn from him the elements, and lay an 
 excellent foundation for his future education, but he 
 caught from him his method of teaching, which was 
 based entirely on the interest he always tried to awaken 
 among his pupils in the subject of study. There is 
 no doubt this was a family inheritance, and that it 
 developed and attained its maximum with Louis. It 
 may be said that Louis Agassiz was born with a true 
 passion for teaching, as truly as that he was born a 
 naturalist. As we shall see, he remained a teacher 
 until the end of his life, changing his subjects of studies 
 quite often, and showing a rather capricious character in 
 many ways, except in his unalterable love of teaching. 
 
1807-27.] COLLEGE or r,u:xxE. g 
 
 Next to his passion for teaching, but developed before 
 it, was his passion for collecting all sorts of objects be- 
 longing to natural history. As soon as he was able to 
 catch fish, he brought them alive and placed them in a 
 great stone basin of the fountain of the parsonage. 1 It 
 is the custom in the Canton de Vaud and the neighbour- 
 ing Swiss cantons to use boulders for basins, either to 
 receive the water flowing from springs, or to hold the 
 fruit of the vintage when the grapes are brought from 
 the vineyard to be pressed and converted into wine. 
 These boulders are generally of Alpine granite, and are 
 cut into the proper shape, great care being taken not to 
 break them, but to keep the block one great monolith. 
 Such an Alpine boulder was the basin of the Motier 
 parsonage, used as a vivier or aquarium by our young 
 ichthyologist. It is not strange that, later in life, Agassiz 
 became such an expert in boulders transported by gla- 
 ciers ; and it seems specially appropriate that one of 
 them, transported from the Alps, should be his tomb- 
 stone in America. 
 
 At the age of ten years, he was sent to the College of 
 Bienne, to begin his classical studies ; finishing them at 
 the Academy of Lausanne in 1 822-1 824. He was a 
 very clever student, but never had much inclination for 
 mathematics and the physical and chemical sciences. 
 He always showed great capacity for languages, be- 
 coming quite proficient in Latin and Greek, and when 
 at Bienne, learning German and Italian, especially the 
 
 1 " Le fils d'un pasteur du Canton de Vaud, dont le pfere, nc savait que 
 faire de ce garcon courant toujours les champs ct toutes les rives du Lac </ 
 chercher des betes" as one of the contemporaries of his youth said. 
 
io LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. i. 
 
 former, which he spoke like a native. Geography was 
 another favourite study. 
 
 His brother Auguste, younger by two years, joined 
 him, a year later, at the College of Bienne, and the 
 two brothers kept together during all their classical 
 studies. The distance between Motier and Bienne — 
 about seven leagues — was always made on foot ; and, 
 considering their extreme youth, it was quite a journey 
 for such little fellows. But they were excellent walkers; 
 and though at first the route was difficult, further on they 
 crossed over the " Seeland," or marshy country, and the 
 western shore of the Lake of Bienne, and reached their 
 destination in eight hours, not over-fatigued. I heard 
 both say, many years after, that it was shorter and 
 easier to go home from Bienne than it was to go to the 
 college at Bienne from home. Going home to pass 
 the vacations was, of course, such an attraction that the 
 roads seemed neither so long nor so dirty; besides, these 
 journeys always happened at a fine time of the year; 
 for college vacations then in all the Jura region were 
 during the fall, from the first of September to the first 
 of November. Louis's great strength and already 
 vigorous vitality are finely illustrated by two anec- 
 dotes : Arriving quite unexpected from Bienne with 
 his brother, he learned at Motier that his sisters with 
 their cousins Mayor were at their grandfather's house 
 at Cudrefin. At once he started again ; but on his 
 arrival at Cudrefin, he found all the young ladies 
 enjoying a bath in the lake, at some distance from 
 the shore. In order not to lose a moment, he jumped 
 into the water with his clothes on, that he might the 
 
1807-27.] VINTAGE-TIME AT MOTIER. 11 
 
 more promptly greet and kiss sisters and cousins, — the 
 latter especially, for with one of them he was already 
 in love; and to express his great admiration for this 
 cousin he could find nothing better to do than to have 
 her name tattooed on his left arm with sulphuric acid. 
 The result was a severe attack of fever, and two or 
 three weeks of forced inaction and rest for his arm, 
 which betrayed his act to the whole family. 
 
 The two brothers divided their vacations between 
 Motier and Cudrefm, where they enjoyed all the free- 
 dom of country life and the comforts of home and fam- 
 ily surroundings. Their time was passed in fishing, 
 rambling about with their grandfather, Dr. Mayor, in 
 his daily excursions as a country doctor, in gathering 
 in the second crop of hay, called " regain," and in the 
 "vendanges." This last occupation was the most pleas- 
 ing ; for when the vineyards were richly laden with 
 grapes, the labourers of the Canton of Berne — where 
 there are no vineyards on account of the severity of 
 the climate — gathered by troops from all around the 
 shores of the Lake of Neuchatel, to offer themselves 
 as "vendangeurs," or vintagers, during the time of the 
 gathering of the grapes and the process of crushing 
 the juice under the " pressoir." It was a true festival, 
 when everybody, young and old, was happy, singing 
 throughout the day and calling from vineyard to vine- 
 yard. In the evening at supper, all the "vendangeurs ' 
 sat at the table with the proprietors, and the most pro- 
 ficient singers were called, one after another, to sing 
 popular songs, which were closed in chorus by the 
 whole company. Light wines were used very freely 
 
12 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. i. 
 
 and the cups were continually filled and emptied 
 during these very joyous and friendly repasts. For 
 it must be kept in mind that the same labourers used 
 to come every year, and the meetings were more or less 
 reunions of old acquaintances, always full of reminis- 
 cences of preceding years. 
 
 Mingling so freely with the people round him, it 
 would seem that Louis must have become an expert 
 in horsemanship and the use of firearms, like almost 
 all young men raised in country places in Switzerland. 
 But this was not the case. Trusting to his great 
 powers of swimming, and led on by his love for 
 fish-catching, Louis was always ready to embark on 
 skiff or raft of any sort. But on land it was very 
 different. In Switzerland no one ever saw him on 
 horseback ; and it is doubtful if he ever tried to ride, 
 except once in Brazil. All his life he invariably de- 
 clined to mount horse or mule. As to shooting, he 
 never possessed firearms, and never joined a shooting 
 club, and probably never fired a single shot during his 
 life in Europe. He is a very remarkable exception among 
 the Swiss of the present century, for he never performed 
 any military service. The great "Tirs Federaux" never 
 attracted him, and his passion for natural history never 
 carried him so far as to shoot birds or animals of any 
 sort. 
 
 Curiously enough, when a student at the universities 
 of Zurich, Heidelberg, and Munich, he became a great 
 fencer; and one of his contemporaries and friends 
 writes me that Agassiz was an excellent swordsman, 
 using the rapier with great dexterity, and very ready 
 
1807-27.] COLLEGE OE LAUSANNE. 13 
 
 to make use of it when discussions degenerated into 
 quarrels and obliged the contestants to be called out. 
 At Munich especially he was well known on account of 
 several duels, which he fought to his credit and always 
 successfully. 
 
 At the age of fifteen, it was decided that he should 
 enter, as a clerk, the commercial house of his uncle, 
 Francois Mayor, at Neuchatel. But on account of his 
 ability as a scholar, he was allowed to finish his college 
 studies at Lausanne, where he studied " belles lettres " 
 and the humanities for two years, 1 822-1 824. It was 
 during his stay at Lausanne that he gave the first indica- 
 tion of the possession of the characteristics which after- 
 ward developed so strongly in him as a savant and as a 
 man. Another of his uncles, Dr. Mathias Mayor, had 
 great reputation as a physician, and a large practice at 
 Lausanne and in all Romande Switzerland ; and from 
 him Louis learned the elements of anatomy. At the 
 same time, he had his first opportunity to see a small 
 museum of natural history, the Cantonal Museum, di- 
 rected by Professor D. A. Chavannes, an entomologist of 
 some note. The Helvetic Society of Natural History, 
 founded at Geneva in 18 16, had already collected a small 
 band of Swiss naturalists of great talent, and Agassiz, 
 during his stay at Lausanne, had the good fortune to 
 meet Jean de Charpentier, director of the salt mines of 
 Bex. He was much impressed by the fine face and 
 splendid intellect of de Charpentier ; a rare and perfect 
 type of savant ; and, influenced by the impression he re- 
 ceived from his uncle, Dr. Mayor, )<iww de Charpentier. 
 and Professors Lardy and Chavannes, he resolved to be- 
 
14 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. i. 
 
 come a naturalist; and, as the only way of accomplishing 
 this, he asked his father to let him study medicine, his 
 ambition at that time being to become a country doctor, 
 with full time and opportunity to study the natural his- 
 tory of the Canton de Vaud. 
 
 Agassiz was a rather precocious young man ; and 
 coming to the age of manhood, he was at once a great 
 admirer of the fair sex. It had always been a charac- 
 teristic of the Agassiz family, well known among their 
 kin of the Canton de Vaud ; and Mrs. Rose Agassiz, 
 who knew the family better than any one, and was 
 always of a practical and far-seeing turn of mind, 
 as far back as January, 1828, in one of her letters 
 to Louis, says : " The sooner you have finished your 
 studies, the sooner you can put up your tent, catch 
 your blue butterfly, and metamorphose her into a lov- 
 ing housewife." 1 The unusual case of the old pastor 
 Rudolphe, the grandfather of Louis, who married a 
 second time at the ripe age of sixty-six years, was much 
 commented upon at the time in the commonwealth. 
 
 In 1824 Louis went to the University of Zurich to 
 pursue the medical course and prepare to become a 
 doctor. Zurich was an old centre of culture, and he 
 found there genial surroundings. The professor of 
 natural history, Schinz, at once saw the rare qualifica- 
 tions of Agassiz to become a naturalist, and gave him 
 every opportunity for the study of ornithology, which 
 was his favourite branch. At Lausanne, although a 
 very brilliant student, he was not so much above his 
 
 1 " Louis Agassiz," by Mrs. E. C. Agassiz, Vol. I., p. 62. 
 
1807-27.] UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH. 15 
 
 comrades, for the Vaudois youth are almost all very 
 bright and remarkably intelligent ; but at Zurich it was 
 different. The students there were, for the most part, 
 German Swiss, rather slow, quiet, steady in their work, 
 and not apt to awaken interest of any sort. Agassiz at 
 once attracted the attention of all the students by his 
 quick perception, his witty remarks, and more especially 
 by his constant show of varied knowledge. One of them, 
 many years after, said to me, "Agassiz knew everything, 
 and he was always ready to demonstrate and speak on 
 any subject. If it was a subject which he was not famil- 
 iar with, he would study and rapidly master it ; and on 
 the next occasion, he would speak in such brilliant terms 
 and with such profound erudition that he was a source 
 of constant wonder to all of us." 
 
 At Zurich, Agassiz not only enjoyed the teaching of 
 the zoologist Schinz, but he also often saw the geologist 
 Gesner Escher, the celebrated engineer of the Linth 
 River, and became a great friend of his son, Arnold 
 Escher von der Linth; a friendship which lasted all 
 their lives, notwithstanding great difference of char- 
 acter and even of opinion, Arnold Escher being an 
 observer in the field, while Agassiz was more of a 
 laboratory, museum, and lecture-room man. 
 
 Not only did Louis Agassiz astonish his fellow-stu- 
 dents at Zurich by the variety of his knowledge, but he 
 was also a wonder to them in his capacity as a pleas- 
 ure-seeker. At " Kommers " he was always first to 
 come and last to go, his strong constitution requiring 
 an absorption of food and drink which left all the 
 others far behind him, and won for him the reputation 
 
1 6 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. I. 
 
 of being what the French call a " belle fourchette," or 
 one who wields a good knife and fork. From this time 
 he took for his motto, " First at work, and first at 
 play," and carried it through all his life, with rare 
 interruptions. Such an ambition required a Herculean 
 constitution, which he certainly possessed ; but notwith- 
 standing his strength, this burning of the candle at both 
 ends no doubt finally shortened his life. 
 
 In 1826, after two years at Zurich, Agassiz went to 
 the University of Heidelberg, where he stayed eighteen 
 months. There he made acquaintances which influ- 
 enced him as much as he could be influenced for 
 the rest of his life. His studies took a more decided 
 direction toward natural history, under the leadership of 
 Professors Tiedemann (in comparative anatomy), Leuc- 
 kart (in zoology), Bischoff (in botany), and H. G. 
 Bronn (in geology and palaeontology). While attend- 
 ing the lectures of Tiedemann and Bischoff, Agassiz 
 became acquainted with Alexander Braun and Karl 
 Schimper, two very brilliant botanical students ; and 
 they very soon became congenial and inseparable com- 
 panions, not only during their courses at Heidelberg 
 and afterward at Munich, but even during the first 
 decade after leaving the universities. 
 
 Alexander Braun was the son of the postmaster- 
 general of the Grand Duchy of Baden, who resided at 
 Carlsruhe. As Heidelberg was very near Carlsruhe, 
 Braun took home with him his three friends, — Agassiz, 
 Schimper, and Imhoff (afterwards a distinguished 
 entomologist of Bale), — to pass their vacations. It 
 was a great time, not only for the four intimate young 
 
1807-27.] UNIVERSITY OF HEIDELBERG. 17 
 
 naturalists, but also for the inmates of the house of 
 Postmaster-general Braun. Besides a family of four 
 children, two sons and two daughters, there was living 
 in the family a young Swiss student, Arnold Guyot of 
 Neuchatel, then learning the German language, and 
 preparing for the ministry. Postmaster-general Braun 
 was very scientific in his tastes, and possessed one of 
 the best collections of minerals then existing in Ger- 
 many. His house, near one of the city gates, was large 
 enough to admit and lodge comfortably all this com- 
 pany of young people, who rambled through the forests 
 and fields, ransacking every corner where plants and 
 animals were to be found. They had special rooms 
 devoted to dissections, true laboratories ; and here they 
 brought their specimens, and for hours together dis- 
 cussed and theorized on all kinds of natural-history 
 subjects. 
 
 I shall, farther on, speak at length of Alexander 
 Braun and his younger brother Max, and also of Karl 
 Schimper; but for the present I need only say that the 
 two daughters, Emmy and Cecilia, were both very 
 attractive, and soon received marked attentions, which 
 afterward changed into courtship, from two of the visit- 
 ors, Louis Agassiz and Karl Schimper. The younger, 
 Miss Cecilia, or " Cily," as she was familiarly called, 
 possessed a remarkable talent for drawing, and would 
 have become an artist of repute if she had devoted 
 her life to the fine arts. She was very sensible, affec- 
 tionate, and unaffected, and soon felt the influence of 
 Agassiz's attractive personality. Her talent for drawing- 
 was constantly brought into demand by the specimens 
 
1 8 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. i. 
 
 of natural history which they collected ; and when, in 
 the spring of 1827, Agassiz was brought back to Carls- 
 ruhe a convalescent, after a very severe and dangerous 
 illness of typhoid fever, the care bestowed on him by 
 the whole Braun family, and more especially by Miss 
 Cecilia, resulted in an engagement of marriage. Dur- 
 ing his sickness at Heidelberg, Alexander Braun did 
 not leave him until he took him to his father's house 
 at Carlsruhe, as soon as his convalescence allowed his 
 removal. Later he accompanied him to Orbe, in Switzer- 
 land, where Agassiz's parents were then living, and left 
 him only when he saw him rapidly gaining health in 
 the life-giving air of the " Jura Vaudois," the native 
 country of the Agassiz family. 
 
 As soon as he had recovered sufficiently to walk 
 about, Agassiz, who always was an excellent pedes- 
 trian, began to explore the environs of Orbe, as a nat- 
 uralist, collecting plants, insects, and his dear fishes ; 
 for he never lost sight of fishes for any length of time. 
 The Jura Vaudois, during the summer months, is one 
 of the most beautiful countries to visit, and, received as 
 he was with great pleasure, as a guest at the houses of 
 the pastors of Ballaigues, Vallorbe, Beaulmes, Ste. 
 Croix, and other places, he was enabled to make a 
 thorough exploration of Mount Suchet, 1 591 metres in 
 height, of the Dent de Vaulion, i486 metres, of the Ai- 
 guilles de Beaulmes, 1563 metres, and of the valley of 
 the Orbe River. At this time he first felt that love for 
 the Jura Mountains which lasted until the end of his life. 
 It was during this stay at Orbe that he wrote his first 
 essay in natural history, a catalogue of all the plants 
 
1807-27.] STAY AT ORBE. 19 
 
 growing in the Jura Vaudois. I do not know that it 
 was ever published. I was led to think that it was, 
 when Agassiz, speaking many years after of the Suchet 
 Mountain, which he remembered with the freshness of 
 a young man who has just visited them, said to me, 
 " Do you know, it was the first work I did in natural 
 history — an entirely botanical one." I have been un- 
 able to discover the work, however, and no one of his 
 Swiss family has ever heard of it. It is only just to say 
 that he was much helped in his botanical explorations 
 round Orbe by the " suffragan," or assistant pastor of 
 his father, Marc Louis Fivaz, like Agassiz an enthusiast 
 in natural history. Fivaz soon abandoned all his re- 
 searches in natural history, however, although he held 
 the professorship of botany at the Academy of Lau- 
 sanne, and became a voluntary evangelist in the interior 
 of the west of New York, where he lived, in Tioga 
 County, until his death. 
 
 This summer of 1827, when he had just attained his 
 twentieth year, gave Agassiz his first real opportunity to 
 work as a naturalist ; and, as was always his custom in 
 later life, he induced those around him to help him in 
 collecting specimens and in making drawings. Besides 
 his friend Marc Fivaz, who accompanied him in all his 
 excursions, he put his younger sister, Cecile, to work 
 drawing fishes and butterflies. His first two artists of 
 natural history specimens, therefore, were two Ccri/es, 
 — the first, Miss Cecilia Braun, and the second, Miss 
 Cecile Agassiz, his own sister, and the sister of his 
 friend Braun. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 1827-1831. 
 
 Journey from Carlsruhe to Munich — His Evolution from a 
 French-Swiss to a German Student — His Duel at Heidelberg 
 
 — University of Munich — Doctor of Philosophy — Martius's 
 Proposal to publish Spix's Fishes from Brazil — Publication 
 of His First Great Work on Natural History — Doctor of 
 Medicine and Surgery — Beginning of His Researches on the 
 " Poissons Fossiles" — His Method of publishing His Works 
 
 — His Desire to be the First Naturalist of His Time — Visit 
 to Vienna — Return Home with Artist Dinkel — Life at Con- 
 cise — Christinat — Opportune Help for a Trip to Paris — His 
 Journey "en Zig-zag" by Way of Carlsruhe. 
 
 In the autumn, Braun wrote him about changing 
 their place of study from Heidelberg to Munich. The 
 attraction there was, that according to Dollinger, the 
 instruction in the natural sciences left nothing to be 
 desired. Accordingly, Agassiz left Orbe toward the 
 end of October, 1827, and joined Braun at Carlsruhe, 
 where he was welcomed by the whole family of the 
 postmaster-general of Baden, more especially by Miss 
 Cecilia, who had taken such good care of him when 
 convalescent during the previous journey, and who had 
 already made an excellent portrait of him, in coloured 
 pencil or pastel, during the vacation of 1826. 1 
 
 1 " Portrait of Louis Agassiz at the Age of Nineteen," as frontispiece of 
 "Louis Agassiz, his Life and Correspondence," by E. C. Agassiz, Vol. I. 
 
 20 
 
1827-31] CARLSRUHE TO MUNICH. 21 
 
 On their way on foot to Munich they stopped first 
 at Stuttgart, where the Royal Museum, already quite 
 prominent, attracted much of the attention and even 
 admiration of Agassiz. A splendid North American 
 buffalo, and a piece of the hide of a Siberian mammoth, 
 with hairs still attached, excited his wonder and his 
 imagination ; for he thought that the mammoth's 
 teeth showed that it was a carnivorous animal ; but the 
 question that interested him most was, how this ani- 
 mal could have wandered so far north, and in what 
 manner he died, to be frozen thus, and remain intact, 
 perhaps for countless ages. He little realized that it 
 was reserved for him some day to give the explanation, 
 and that he was to be the god-father of the " Ice-age." 
 
 At Esslingen, Agassiz and Braun stopped to visit two 
 botanists, and make exchanges of specimens. As Agas- 
 siz had a good collection of dried plants from the Jura 
 Vaudois, and Braun of the Palatinate, they presented 
 themselves, each with a package of dried plants under 
 his arm, and were well received ; more especially by 
 Professor von Hochstetter, the father of the afterward 
 celebrated naturalist, Ferdinand von Hochstetter of the 
 " Novara " expedition round the world, and first director 
 of the great Natural History Museum of Vienna. 
 
 On the fourth of November, 1827, Agassiz and Braun 
 alighted at Munich ; and a few days afterward they 
 were joined by the other member of the trio of friends, 
 Karl Schimper, Until then Agassiz had remained a true 
 Swiss ; his stay at Heidelberg had not been long enough 
 nor successful enough, on account of his health, to make 
 any change in him. But as soon as he was settled at 
 
22 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. ii. 
 
 Munich, a change began in his mind, his thought, and 
 even his body; and when he left Munich, three years 
 later, on the fourth of December, 1830, he was entirely 
 a German ; so much so, that his Swiss friends had 
 some difficulty in getting acquainted with him again. 
 It was his first transformation ; several others succeeded, 
 as we shall see by and by. 
 
 Munich was then the most celebrated university in 
 Germany, counting among its professors such men as 
 Oken, Martius, and Dollinger. It was at the house of 
 Dollinger that the three friends found lodging ; occupy- 
 ing rooms which soon became laboratories, lecture rooms, 
 and the rendezvous of many of their classmates. 
 Agassiz afterward had occasion to give a vivid descrip- 
 tion of their student life, in his paper, " Erwiederung 
 auf Dr. Karl Schimper's Angriffe " (Neuchatel, Novem- 
 ber, 1842, 4to). In those days friendship reigned. 
 Almost everything was enjoyed in common ; work, 
 pleasure, journeys, pipes, beer, purses, clothes, ideas 
 political and philosophical, or poetical, and even liter- 
 ary. In fact, it was a constant, enthusiastic, intellectual 
 life, lived at high pressure, lacking in nothing ; not even 
 student duels, and escapades of a more riotous nature, 
 after grand " Kommers." 
 
 Agassiz enjoyed among the students the reputation 
 of being the best fencer in the various students' clubs. 
 The reputation was gained in this way : When at Heidel- 
 berg, an insult to the Swiss clan (Burschenschaft) of 
 which Agassiz was the president was considered so 
 serious among the students, that a challenge was sent 
 by Agassiz to the German club. At a meeting of the 
 
I827-3 1 -] DUEL AT HEIDELBERG. 23 
 
 German students, a choice was made of one of their 
 best swordsmen to meet him. Agassiz, however, would 
 not accept such conditions, but said proudly, " It is not 
 with one of you that I want to fight, but with all, one 
 after another." They marched to the chosen ground, 
 and in a few minutes four German students had received 
 sword cuts on their faces ; then the others who were 
 to follow began to think that the affair had gone far 
 enough, and although invited by Agassiz to take position, 
 they offered honourable peace, and made an apology. 
 After that, Agassiz was always chosen as arbitrator and 
 judge at all the fencing clubs of the universities of 
 Heidelberg and Munich. He was so carried away by 
 his pleasure in fencing, that one day, without remem- 
 bering to put on masks, he and his future brother-in-law, 
 Alexander Braun, fell in with rapiers in hand, and after 
 a few exchanges of thrusts, Agassiz made a cut in the 
 face of his dear friend. Years after, when a professor 
 at Neuchatel, he appeared at a public fencing exhibi- 
 tion given by a tall and powerful negro fencing master, 
 with success and credit. 
 
 Schimper, who was the oldest of the three, and whose 
 imagination was the keenest and most original, exerted 
 a great influence over Agassiz and Braun. His discov- 
 eries in regard to the morphology of plants gave him 
 great advantage over the two others, who had not yet 
 done any original work. But Agassiz was not the man 
 to be long overshadowed by any one. He wanted to 
 occupy the first place everywhere. Happily he escaped 
 the danger to which Schimper succumbed, and, with 
 the help of Braun, whose mind was the best balanced 
 
24 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. ii. 
 
 of the three friends, Agassiz kept out of temptation, 
 and expended his impetuous nature in solid and difficult 
 work on fishes, living and fossil. 
 
 Strange to say, with an allowance of only $250 a 
 year, Agassiz managed constantly to keep in his pay 
 an artist, Dinkel, to draw fossil and living fishes , 
 and, occasionally, a second artist, Mr. J. C. Weber, 
 to draw the Spix fishes and pieces of anatomy. They 
 formed a sort of fraternal association. As Agassiz 
 said, " They were even poorer than I, and so we man- 
 aged to get along together." Their fare was certainly 
 very simple ; bread, cheese, beer, and tobacco being the 
 main articles. Imagine Agassiz, with his scanty allow- 
 ance, providing for two artists, besides Karl Schimper, 
 and his younger brother, William Schimper. To be sure, 
 Alexander Braun helped much also. But if we sup- 
 pose that Braun got $300 a year from his father, six 
 young men between the ages of twenty and twenty-five 
 had to live upon less than $600 a year, out of which 
 also they had to pay for their studies at the univer- 
 sity, and provide themselves with instruments, and books, 
 and clothing. Agassiz got a little money from the 
 " Brazilian Fishes " and some other writing, with which 
 he purchased a microscope — a rather expensive instru- 
 ment — and several books ; and he received, as a gift 
 from Professor Dollinger, a copy of the finely illus- 
 trated work on living fishes, by the great French ich- 
 thyologist, Rondelet, of Montpellier. The editor Cotta 
 sent him also a certain number of expensive natural 
 history books. 
 
 " I cannot review my Munich life without great grati- 
 
 
1827-31-] UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH. 25 
 
 tude," Agassiz says. He was there a most happy and 
 successful young man, using all the scientific resources 
 existing in that large and progressive city ; drawing 
 round him comrades of the University, and even pro- 
 fessors ; and receiving visits from naturalists of renown, 
 including the great anatomist Meckel. His room in the 
 house of Dollinger, being the largest, was used as 
 lecture room, assembly room, laboratory, and museum. 
 Some one was always coming or going ; the half-dozen 
 chairs were covered with books, piled one upon another, 
 hardly one being left for use, and visitors were fre- 
 quently obliged to remove books and put them on the 
 floor ; the bed, also, was used as a seat, and as a recep- 
 tacle for specimens, drawings, and papers. According 
 to Agassiz, the tobacco smoke was sometimes so thick 
 it mi^ht have been cut with a knife. 
 
 Agassiz was the most prominent among the students. 
 His acquaintance was courted by all. He was specially 
 considered with much pride by all the Swiss students, 
 and was welcome both in the rooms and yards of the 
 University, and at the students' clubs, " Bierbrauerei," 
 and fencing rooms. He was considered a most amiable 
 companion, never losing his temper, always smiling and 
 apparently contented and happy. It is no wonder that 
 he remembered so vividly his student life at Munich, 
 and was always grateful for it. Although at Munich he 
 learned embryology from Dollinger, who gave him per- 
 sonal instructions in the use of the microscope, and 
 followed the lectures of the great philosopher Schelling, 
 as well as the fascinating teaching of Oken, with his 
 a priori conceptions of the relations of the three king- 
 
26 LOUIS AGASSI/.. [chap. ii. 
 
 doms into which he divided all living beings ; he was 
 not instructed then either in palaeontology or in geology, 
 the two branches of science in which he became after- 
 ward preeminent. The only teacher he ever had 
 in those two sciences was Professor H. G. Bronn at 
 Heidelberg, a rather second-rate palaeontologist, but a 
 very industrious and prolific writer. 
 
 Although Agassiz came to Munich for the special 
 purpose of taking the degree of doctor of medicine, 
 his studies soon drifted from those of a medical student 
 to those of a true naturalist. This change was not 
 made without warnings from his father, who became 
 alarmed by the rather large expenses incurred by his 
 son, 1 and more so by his neglect of his medical studies. 
 But Louis Agassiz was born a naturalist, and a 
 naturalist he must be ; and, notwithstanding all sorts of 
 difficulties, with the help of his mother, who always 
 favoured his desires, he carried through his scheme of 
 seeking a professorship of natural history. 
 
 His first step, in regard to graduation, was to secure not 
 a title of medical doctor and surgeon, but of doctor of 
 philosophy, which he won, in the spring of 1829, at the 
 University of Erlangen. The excuse for so doing was a 
 
 1 Agassiz's good heart had already, when at Heidelberg, led him to 
 help, pecuniarily, Karl Schimper, and as soon as established at Munich, he 
 sent Schimper money to pay the expense of his journey, and invited him 
 to join them in their lodging. Schimper not only came directly, but 
 brought with him his brother William. Agassiz's income was henceforth, 
 on this account, limited in proportion. It must now suffice for the main- 
 tenance of a friend; for as soon as Schimper arrived, Agassiz gave him 
 the key of his chest in which was his money; and, during the three years 
 of his stay at Munich, he, in fact, gave to Schimper the means to satisfy all 
 his needs — a rare example of generosity. 
 
1827-31-] FISHES FROM BRAZIL. 27 
 
 clever one. Martius had proposed to him to publish the 
 fishes of Brazil collected by Spix and himself during 
 their explorations on the Amazon, from 18 17 to 1821. 
 Spix having died in 1826, before finishing the publication 
 of the zoological part, Martius, who possessed excellent 
 judgment and great insight into character, saw at once 
 the ability of young Agassiz as a describer of species, 
 and proposed to him, during the summer of 1828, to 
 take the fishes. The offer was certainly most flat- 
 tering to Agassiz, then in his twenty-first year, and 
 before he had yet published anything to recommend 
 him. Martius assumed all the expenses and, of course, 
 all the profits ; and Agassiz received as his share only 
 a few copies of the book, with an atlas of beautifully 
 coloured fishes. Before the book was issued, Martius 
 told him that it was important that his name should 
 have the title of doctor of philosophy attached to it, and 
 that at the same time it would help him to get a pro- 
 fessorship of natural history. 
 
 However, that title would not do as a substitute for 
 his medical degree, and, bracing his courage, he worked 
 hard, and prepared his theses with great success ; for 
 when he received his degree of doctor of medicine and 
 surgery, the 3d of April, 1830, the dean said to him: 
 " The faculty have been very much pleased with your 
 answers; they congratulate themselves on being able 
 to give the diploma to a young man who has already 
 acquired so honourable a reputation." It was nine 
 months after the publication of his great work on the 
 fishes of Brazil, a folio with ninety plates, which had 
 attracted the attention of all naturalists, more especially 
 
28 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. n. 
 
 of George Cuvier, the greatest ichthyologist of his time, 
 who was then engaged on his celebrated work " His- 
 toire des Poissons." Agassiz's work, which was dedi- 
 cated to Cuvier, is written in Latin, and possesses the 
 qualities so prominent in all Agassiz's publications ; 
 namely, accurate descriptions of the species, and excel- 
 lent and even beautiful figures. It is most creditable in 
 every way, and it furnished a sound basis for Agassiz's 
 reputation as an ichthyologist of the first rank, although 
 he was only twenty-two years old. 
 
 This first success was much enjoyed by his family 
 and his friends, and prompted him to undertake a task 
 which was sure to place him in the front rank as a 
 naturalist, " hors ligne." Soon after the vacation of 
 1829, which was spent at Heidelberg, Carlsruhe, and 
 Orbe, the director of the museum at Munich offered 
 to Agassiz every facility to work at the collection of 
 fossil fishes, allowing him to carry the specimens to his 
 room. As the director of the Strasbourg Museum, the 
 mining engineer Voltz, and Professor Bronn of Heidel- 
 berg had made the same offer, Agassiz, seeing what a 
 splendid work was laid before him, did not hesitate to 
 undertake it, notwithstanding the great difficulties, both 
 material and scientific. 
 
 A few words should be said in regard to his method 
 of undertaking work without being sure beforehand 
 of the means to carry it on successfully. For example, 
 in the case of his " Poissons fossiles," as we shall 
 see, he first tried a M. Cotta, a publisher of Stutt- 
 gart, and when the latter failed to come to a final 
 agreement for want of knowledge as to his part of the 
 
 
1827-3 1 ■] WORKS OAT NATURAL HISTORY. 29 
 
 expense to be incurred (for Agassiz never knew before- 
 hand what his work would be, even approximately, as 
 to quantity of text and plates), he found that he could 
 rely upon no one, but must himself publish his rather 
 expensive work. Martius's work on Brazil was aided 
 by a large subscription from the purse of the king of 
 Bavaria. The only country in which it was possible to 
 find a publisher for a very expensive work on natural 
 history was France ; and even there publishers required 
 a certain number of subscriptions from the government 
 before accepting the charge. " The Mineral Conchol- 
 ogy of Great Britain " had involved great expense, 
 without proper return, and was anything but a success 
 in a pecuniary way. Goldfuss's " Petrefacta Germania," 
 then in course of publication, 1826-44, was supported 
 only by the personal sacrifice of the author himself. 
 Even Cuvier's great work on the " ossements fossiles ' 
 was not successful from a bookseller's point of view, 
 and without the help of the French government it 
 would have been impossible to publish it. 
 
 If Agassiz had been a business man, or a good man- 
 ager, he might have succeeded in having his work on 
 the fossil fishes published in Paris, with a sufficient 
 subscription from the Secretary of Public Instruction to 
 carry on the work, if not at a profit, at least without 
 loss on his part ; for Cuvier was then publishing his 
 " Histoire Naturelle des Poissons " in that way; and if 
 that great work, finished after the death of Cuvier 
 by Valenciennes, was not a pecuniary success, it en- 
 tailed at least no expense upon its two authors. 
 
 Agassiz always acted as if he were a very rich man ; 
 
30 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. ii. 
 
 and now, taking an excellent artist, Joseph Dinkel, into 
 his service, he had him draw all the fossil fishes he 
 could find in the different museums ; and, full of hope 
 and never thinking of the morrow, he began his " Pois- 
 sons fossiles," trusting to good luck and his power of 
 persuasion. He was not patient enough to wait for the 
 proper moment. With him time was money, and he 
 pushed forward without regard to consequences. He 
 had such self-confidence that it is almost amusing to 
 see him writing to his father from Munich, Feb. 14, 
 1829 : " I wish it may be said of Louis Agassiz that he 
 was the first naturalist of his time, a good citizen, and 
 a good son, beloved by those who knew him. I feel 
 within myself the strength of a whole generation to 
 work toward this end, and I will reach it if the means 
 are not wanting." Strange to say, he attained his aim ; 
 if not the first, he was certainly one of the first natu- 
 ralists of the nineteenth century ; he was a good citizen 
 of Switzerland and afterward of the United States, a 
 devoted son to his father and mother, and beloved, if 
 not by all, certainly by a great many of those who 
 knew him in Europe and in America. This intuition 
 of his capacity and strength, this thought that he had 
 concentrated in him the powers of all his ancestors to 
 observe and work on natural history, is something 
 almost wonderful in its naivete. It is not strange 
 that his father was often frightened for the future of 
 such a prodigy, for such certainly Louis Agassiz was. 
 
 During his stay in Munich, he went home only once, 
 spending there the two months of October and Novem- 
 ber, 1829. His time was passed mainly at the parson- 
 
1 827-3 1. J VISIT TO VIENNA. 31 
 
 age of Orbe, and at Cudrefin, near his good grandfather, 
 Dr. Mayor, who died during Louis's visit. As soon as 
 he returned to Munich in December, 1829, he began his 
 great work on the " Poissons fossiles," pursuing at the 
 same time his medical studies, and, as we have seen, 
 successfully passing his examinations, the subjects being 
 anatomical, pathological, surgical, obstetrical, with in- 
 quiries into " materia medica," " medica forensis," and 
 the relation of botany to these topics, as it is printed in 
 his " Einladung." 
 
 As soon as his examination and the ceremony of re- 
 ceiving the degree from the rector of the University were 
 over, he started for Vienna, where he passed almost 
 two months. It was a great gratification to him' to find 
 that his reputation had reached Vienna, for he was 
 received there, by professors and curators of museums, 
 as "an associate already known." He looked specially 
 at fossil fishes, and made memoranda of all the speci- 
 mens, to be used afterward in his great work. His 
 memory was so good, his eye so accurate, that many 
 years afterward, when looking at fossil fishes at Neu- 
 chatel, he one day said : " I have seen before another 
 specimen of this same species in the museum at 
 Vienna" ; even going so far as to indicate the drawer 
 in which it was stored. The director at Vienna, on 
 being written in regard to it, answered that he had 
 found the fossil fish where Agassiz had indicated that 
 it was, and sent it at once. It was, as Agassiz said, of 
 the same species. 
 
 Agassiz's last letter from Munich to his parents is 
 dated Nov. 26, 1830. He left Munich the 4th of De- 
 
32 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. ii. 
 
 cember, 1830, after settling all his accounts and expen- 
 ditures, taking with him his draughtsman, Dinkel, to 
 the great amazement of his father, who did not relish 
 the arrival of his, son's friend at his new parsonage at 
 Concise, whither he had just removed from Orbe. His 
 protest, that there was no room for another person, was 
 of no avail. Louis wrote him that Dinkel was not in 
 his pay, but was provided for by his publisher, M. 
 Cotta, and that an agreement had been made for him 
 to accompany Agassiz in future wherever he should 
 go. Accordingly, one morning in December, 1830, he 
 arrived with Dinkel, who was lodged in the neighbour- 
 hood, and came every day to Louis's room to draw 
 fishes. 
 
 The parsonage of the village of Concise is beautifully 
 situated close to the north of the church, with a ter- 
 race and garden overlooking the Lake of Neuchatel, and 
 commanding some of the most beautiful and extensive 
 scenery in Switzerland. The room occupied by Louis 
 Agassiz was on the first story, according to the way 
 of counting stories in Switzerland ; the second story, 
 according to the American way, at the southeast corner 
 of the parsonage, close by the churchyard. There he 
 was seen constantly at the window, with his long mous- 
 taches, smoking, and hard at work with specimens. 
 
 The arrival of the parson's son, with his draughts- 
 man, both dressed more or less as German students, 
 with small caps on their heads, and long pipes in their 
 mouths, greatly excited the curiosity of the quiet vil- 
 lagers. On Sunday they used to row on the lake, and, 
 with long poles, passed their time in breaking the pot- 
 
1827-31.] LIFE AT CONCISE. 33 
 
 tery jars, easily seen at the bottom through the trans- 
 parent blue, water, an amusement the young men of 
 Concise were somewhat addicted to. How little Agassiz 
 then thought that he was doing the work of a true bar- 
 barian, destroying pottery utensils which had belonged 
 to his ancestors, the lake-dwellers of prehistoric time ! 
 After the discoveries of Keller at the Zurich Lake, 
 Agassiz, remembering what he did in 183 1 on the Lake 
 of Neuchatel, exclaimed : " How foolish I was ! Dinkel 
 and I have in sport broken dozens of important prehis- 
 toric pieces of pottery." 
 
 Almost a year of good work was passed at home, with 
 nothing to disturb him, writing his " Poissons fossiles ' 
 and directing Dinkel's drawings. It was a great change 
 after his rather boisterous student life at Munich. His 
 habitual audience of fifteen or twenty persons, meeting 
 daily in his room, and called the " Little Academy" by 
 common consent, by both students and professors, was 
 now reduced to Dinkel and his own family circle, with 
 a few friends, relatives, and old acquaintances, who 
 came in now and then, and were rather surprised, but 
 unable to appreciate the work in which Louis was so 
 deeply engaged. 
 
 Finally, the attraction of Paris proved too great, and 
 to Paris he resolved to go, — a determination which he 
 found not easy to carry into effect. 
 
 He had exhausted the paternal purse, and money 
 was difficult to secure. At this critical moment came 
 assistance, which was prompted entirely by friendly 
 admiration and confidence in his future. An old friend 
 of his father, a pastor of the Canton de Vaud, M. 
 
 D 
 
34 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. ii. 
 
 Christinat, who had always been very fond of Louis 
 since his childhood, came one day and simply put in 
 his hand a sum of money sufficient for a journey to 
 Paris. Helped also by his uncle Mayor of Neuchatel, 
 and his publisher Cotta, he was able to start on his 
 much-desired journey to see Cuvier and enlarge his 
 field of study of " poissons fossiles " in the great collec- 
 tions of Paris. Agassiz never forgot the generosity of 
 Christinat, and after the death of his father he always 
 considered Christinat a second father, feeling for him a 
 true filial love. 
 
 He took " le chemin des ecoliers " for Paris, passing 
 by Stuttgart, Carlsruhe, Heidelberg, and Strasbourg, " to 
 collect," as he says, "for my fossil fishes all the ma- 
 terial I still desired, and to extend my knowledge of 
 geology sufficiently to join, without embarrassment at 
 least, in conversation upon the more recent researches 
 in that department." To be sure, he took with him 
 his draughtsman Dinkel ; but the "zigzag' journey 
 was made mainly in order to see the Braun family, 
 and more especially Miss Cecilia and his dear classmate 
 and friend, Alexander Braun, the best companion of his 
 student life. Braun was the most reasonable by far 
 of the trio, Agassiz, Braun, and Schimper ; he was also 
 the most steady and persevering as a student. His 
 knowledge of geology was far superior to the knowl- 
 edge of Agassiz in that branch of natural history; and 
 Agassiz's avowed desire, as it were, to interview Alex- 
 ander Braun on recent researches shows the method 
 constantly used afterward by him for learning and keep- 
 ing himself informed as to the progress and condition 
 
1 827-3 1 .] VISIT TO CARLSRUHE. 35 
 
 of geology. During all his stay in America, I was 
 interviewed on my return from trips to Europe, or 
 the interior part of the United States and Canada. 
 Agassiz, with his remarkable memory, his keen per- 
 ceptions of new discoveries, and his easy way of mar- 
 shalling facts and using them afterward in his lectures 
 or papers, would ply me with questions during two or 
 three hours, in regard to all I had learned during my 
 absence from Cambridge. It was a peculiar and rather 
 original way of learning the more recent researches and 
 the history of the progress of geology. But to make 
 use of the facts without too much blundering required 
 the splendid and rare qualities of an Agassiz. 
 
 In the letter to his mother, dated Carlsruhe, Novem- 
 ber, 183 1, in which he speaks of his visit to the Brauns, 
 he says : " I have added to my work on the fossil fishes 
 one hundred and seventy-one pages of manuscript in 
 French, written between my excursions and in the 
 midst of other occupations." It is to be regretted that, 
 with such facility as a scientific writer, he gave up 
 almost all writing after 1837, trusting to secretaries, 
 assistants, and stenographers. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 1831-1832. 
 
 First Visit to Paris — His Relations with Cuvier — Humboldt 
 charmed with hlm — hls vlsit to the seashore at dieppe — 
 Death of Cuvier — Sketch of Cuvier's Life — Cuvier and Geof- 
 froy St. Hilaire — Their Discussion before the French Acad- 
 emy of Science — Cuvier's Influence on Agassiz — Difficulty of 
 getting an official position in paris — appointed professor at 
 the Lyceum of NeuchAtel. 
 
 On the 16th of December, 183 1, after travelling by 
 diligence for two days and three nights, on the road 
 between Strasbourg and Paris, Agassiz and Dinkel 
 alighted in the great crowded courtyard of the " Messa- 
 geries Royales," rue Montmartre, so tired that they 
 could hardly move hand or foot. The fatigue of these 
 long journeys, in diligences, can hardly be realized now. 
 
 Packed in the rotunda with six often disagreeable 
 neighbours, all breathing the same foul air, and jostled 
 and even severely shaken from the bad roads, over 
 which the diligence had to run, it was a great relief, 
 first when the paved roads were reached, eighty miles 
 before the arrival in Paris, and later when the great 
 stagecoach finally turned into the courtyard of the 
 " Messageries." It was an interesting sight for Agassiz 
 to watch the diligences, arriving or starting, with promi- 
 
 36 
 
1831-32.'] ARRIVAL IX PARTS. ' yj 
 
 nent names, such as Forback, Bruxelles, Dunkerque, 
 Calais, le Havre, Cherbourg, Brest, Nantes, Bordeaux, 
 Bayonne, Toulouse, Perpignan, Montpellier, Marseilles, 
 Lyon, Besancon, etc. Nearly every tongue was heard 
 there, and the weary look of the arriving passengers 
 was something not to be forgotten. He had not seen 
 anything approaching the scene in Southern Germany, 
 or even in Vienna. However, he soon found his way to 
 the rue Copau, on the other side of the Seine, and 
 alighted finally at the "Hotel du Jardin du Roi," No. 4, 
 just opposite the " Hospital de la Pitie," and close by 
 the Jardin des Plantes. This third-rate hotel has always 
 been a place of resort for naturalists, — French as well 
 as foreign, — on account of its proximity to the great 
 Museum of Natural History. The prices there were 
 moderate and the fare good; a part of the old hotel, 
 and the most desirable, was situated between a paved 
 yard and a garden. It was here that Agassiz and 
 Dinkel got a room. Sixteen years later, I saw Agassiz 
 occupying the same room, quite proud to show that 
 nothing had been changed in the arrangement of the 
 furniture. There were the same shelves for books, 
 where he placed, as he told me, the first works offered 
 to him by both Cuvier and Humboldt ; the only altera- 
 tion being the removal of the small bedstead on which 
 Dinkel slept. 
 
 As soon as Cuvier heard of his arrival, he sent for 
 him ; and Agassiz passed his second evening in Paris 
 at the house of the great French naturalist. His re- 
 ception was cordial and friendly, although with some 
 reserve ; for Cuvier was not a man of many words. 1 lis 
 
33 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. hi. 
 
 politeness was dignified, his manner that of a courtier 
 accustomed to move among men in high office or of 
 great social position. But he was kindly disposed and 
 good hearted, his most notable characteristic being a 
 kindliness directed right to the point, in order that no 
 time might be lost. He always acted as if every hour 
 was extremely valuable to him, working methodically ; 
 each day, each hour, having its task appointed in 
 advance, and he was reluctant to be interrupted or 
 interfered with in the course of his researches or 
 thoughts. The first meeting was more than satisfac- 
 tory to Agassiz, who had not expected such a friendly 
 reception, which, in his own words, " more than fulfilled 
 his expectations." He was absolutely astounded by 
 the great erudition, the prodigious memory, and the 
 extreme facility of Cuvier in passing from one ardu- 
 ous subject to another. Agassiz was more than 
 charmed ; he was actually astonished by the immense 
 amount of knowledge accumulated in the brain of a 
 single man. This first impression was never changed ; 
 and the more he knew of Cuvier, the more he admired 
 him. Agassiz had found his master, and his leader for 
 life. 
 
 After a few days of intercourse, Cuvier was so satis- 
 fied with the author of the Brazilian fishes that he gave 
 him and his artist a corner in one of his laboratories, — 
 the one devoted to fishes ; for Cuvier possessed a lab- 
 oratory for each of his works, where was accumulated 
 everything pertaining to the subject, such as specimens, 
 drawings, and books, in order not to lose time. The 
 arrangement was a matter of wonder to Agassiz, who 
 
1831-32.] RELATIONS WITH CUVIER. 39 
 
 tried afterward — always in vain — to secure the same 
 orderliness for himself. But later I shall give the rea- 
 son why Cuvier was able to organize his time and labora- 
 tories, and why Agassiz always failed to do so. 
 
 Agassiz's main object in coming to Paris was to col- 
 lect material for his " Poissons fossiles," and at the 
 same time to become acquainted with Cuvier and some 
 other French naturalists, in the hope that he might find 
 an official position in such a great establishment as the 
 Jardin des Plantes. Cuvier watched him attentively, 
 and was so pleased with what he saw, that he deliber- 
 ately decided to renounce his project of publishing, as 
 he had intended, a work on fossil fishes ; and with great 
 generosity — too rare among savants — he placed at the 
 disposal of young Agassiz all the materials, drawings, 
 and notes which he had collected at the British Museum, 
 at Avignon, and elsewhere, during more than fifteen 
 years. 
 
 It was at one of his weekly Saturday evening recep- 
 tions that Cuvier delivered into Agassiz's hands the 
 drawings and notes, filling a large portfolio, brought 
 from the study by his faithful assistant Laurillard. It 
 filled Agassiz with greater joy than he had ever felt before 
 or than he ever felt again, as he said many years after. 
 Certainly such an acknowledgment from the greatest 
 naturalist then living was a most gratifying and unex- 
 pected reward for all Agassiz's studies and efforts. It 
 was most encouraging and auspicious for his future. 
 All that Agassiz had expected, and even this was with 
 grave doubts, was that, perhaps, Cuvier ntight be in- 
 duced to allow him to assist in finishing the work with 
 
40 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. in. 
 
 him, just as he had lately allowed Valenciennes to 
 help him to finish his " Histoire naturelle des Poissons 
 vivants." Of course the gift of Cuvier was highly 
 appreciated by his parents on the shore of the Lake of 
 Neuchatel. It was most gratifying for them to see 
 their dear Louis so well treated. But, alas ! just at this 
 time the small sum of money he had brought with him 
 began to run very low ; and there was no immediate 
 prospect of replenishing his purse unless he accepted 
 an offer from J. Daudebard de Ferussac to take the 
 editorship of the zoological part of his " Bulletin des 
 annonces et des nouvelles scientifiques," which would 
 yield an additional thousand francs a year, but would 
 require two or three hours' work daily. 
 
 One of his first acquaintances at Paris was Alexander 
 von Humboldt, then a star of the first magnitude among 
 the numerous great French savants. If Cuvier' s wel- 
 come was somewhat reserved and marked by formal 
 politeness, lacking cordiality, Humboldt's reception 
 took a form of indulgence and kindness which warmed 
 Agassiz's heart. From their first meeting at the apart- 
 ments of Humboldt, in his working room in the rue de 
 la Harpe in the Latin Quarter, a mutual attraction was 
 felt ; and the terrible Humboldt, the fear of all savants 
 and of all the great salons of Paris, took a fancy to the 
 young Swiss naturalist. He took him to breakfast at 
 his usual cafe-restaurant, the celebrated Cafe Procop, 
 rue de l'Ancienne Comedie, near by ; and there, as was 
 his custom, hardly taking time to eat, he talked inces- 
 santly of his experience among the electric fishes in 
 Venezuela. Agassiz, who was all attention, did not 
 
1831-32.] HE CHARMED HUMBOLDT. 41 
 
 interrupt him once, — certainly a great mark of admira- 
 tion on the part of Agassiz, who was himself a great 
 talker, — and after three hours together, they separated 
 at the door of the Mazarine Library, charmed with 
 each other. 
 
 To have pleased a man so sarcastic as Humboldt 
 was not a small triumph. He was conquered by the 
 juvenile enthusiasm, the extraordinary optimism, of 
 Agassiz. As one of the friends of Agassiz says, " Lui 
 (de Humboldt) qui etait si mordant de nature n'est 
 qu'affectueux et plein de sollicitude en ecrivant ou en 
 causant avec son jeune ami." 
 
 In some way Humboldt learned through the pub- 
 lisher, Cotta of Stuttgart, the straitened circumstances 
 under which Agassiz was labouring, and therefore 
 simply enclosed in a letter a " billet de la Banque de 
 France " for one thousand francs, begging him to 
 accept it. Agassiz, in his letter of thanks, dated the 
 27th of March, 1832, calls Humboldt his " benefactor 
 and friend," and confesses that his kind and helpful 
 hand has unexpectedly rescued him from a distressing 
 position, and that now he is again in hope of devoting 
 his whole powers to science. Humboldt was then min- 
 ister plenipotentiary of Prussia to the court of the 
 Tuileries ; and his timely help won for him an admira- 
 tion which ended only with the last day of Agassiz's 
 life. As Agassiz himself says, " I was pleased to re- 
 main a debtor of Humboldt, for I have never returned 
 the sum he bestowed at such an opportune moment." 
 
 Agassiz-like, as soon as he was recovered from his 
 despondency in regard to money, his buoyant spirit led 
 
42 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. in. 
 
 him at once on a journey to the seashore of Normandy 
 in company with Alexander Braun, who had joined him 
 in Paris six weeks after his arrival, and Dinkel. They 
 walked all the way from Havre to Dieppe, enjoying 
 to the full the spectacle, so new to them, of living 
 sea-animals, bringing back from that too short visit 
 many new ideas, cheered and stimulated by " the 
 great phenomena presented by the ocean in its vast 
 expanse." 
 
 A few weeks after his return from Normandy, Agassiz 
 sustained a great loss, — a loss which affected the rest 
 of his life, — in the death of his master, George Cuvier. 
 Since Carnival and during the whole spring cholera had 
 been raging fearfully in Paris, greatly increasing the 
 death rate ; some quarters, however, like the Jardin des 
 Plantes, had been almost free from the terrible scourge, 
 but there it at last made its appearance, and one of its 
 most illustrious victims was Cuvier. Sunday, the 6th 
 of May, 1832, Agassiz, as was his custom, worked all 
 the day until dinner time at five o'clock in Cuvier's 
 study. During a conversation, Cuvier, seeing how 
 intense Agassiz's application to work was, said to him : 
 " Soyez prudent, et rappelez vous que trop de travail 
 tue." On the next day Baron Cuvier, who, in 183 1, 
 had been created by King Louis Philippe a peer of 
 France, when about to ascend the tribune in the Cham- 
 ber of Peers, at the Palace of the Luxembourg, to deliver 
 an address, suffered paralysis. He was carried home, 
 and rallied, but died on Sunday, May 13, 1832, the imme- 
 diate cause of his death being an attack of cholera. 
 
 The unexpected and somewhat premature death of 
 
1831-32.] HEATH OF CUVIER. 43 
 
 Cuvier at the age of sixty-three — for his life might 
 have extended ten and perhaps fifteen years longer — 
 had a very serious effect, which cannot be overesti- 
 mated, on the future of Agassiz. Cuvier was the only 
 man who exerted a scientific and personal influence 
 over Agassiz; from him, and him alone, Agassiz would 
 accept advice, and be guided in his work. He recog- 
 nized in him his master, and the young charmer of 
 Switzerland found in him another more powerful 
 than himself, and especially more practical in his life 
 and work. At first the formal politeness of Cuvier 
 chilled him, and he says, " I would gladly go away 
 were I not held fast by the wealth of material of which 
 I can avail myself for instruction." But this first im- 
 pression soon passed away, and an unbounded admira- 
 tion replaced it. 
 
 Some details are necessary to understand the course 
 taken by Agassiz, and the singular resolve to leave 
 Paris, at that time the Mecca of all naturalists and 
 savants, to settle as a professor, with a very small 
 salary, in a small town of less than six thousand 
 inhabitants, in a hybrid country, half Swiss, half 
 Prussian, lost in Central Europe. 
 
 Cuvier, son of an officer of a Swiss regiment, in the 
 French service, and nephew of a Protestant clergyman 
 of talent, was called to Paris, after the revolution of 
 the 9th Thermidor, by young Geoffroy, — celebrated 
 since as Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, — and attached 
 to the Jardin des Plantes, as substitute for the professor 
 of comparative anatomy. The reading of some manu- 
 script papers on natural history, sent by Cuvier, had 
 
44 LOUIS AGASSTZ. [chap. hi. 
 
 excited in the enthusiastic mind of Geoffroy such an 
 admiration that he wrote him, then in Normandy, 
 acting as tutor in a nobleman's family, " Come and 
 play among us the part of Linnaeus — of another 
 legislator and ruler of natural history." This was at 
 the beginning of 1795. Cuvier soon rose to the front 
 rank, and even to so high a position that, after 18 17, the 
 year of the appearance of his " Regne animal," he was 
 recognized by all European naturalists as unquestion- 
 ably the leader. From that moment Cuvier developed 
 a love of power and a tyrannical spirit which surprised 
 and grieved some of his best friends. He became 
 overbearing and impatient of any opposition to such 
 a degree that in 1830, during the celebrated discussion 
 before the French Academy of Science, occasioned by 
 the publication of the " Principes de philosophie zoolo- 
 gique," in May, 1830, a rupture occurred with his life- 
 long friend Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. Cuvier and Geoffroy 
 became irreconcilable antagonists, but remained person- 
 ally friendly, though the intimacy which had existed 
 between them during more than thirty years ceased, as 
 much through the fault of Geoffroy as of Cuvier. In 
 the discussion Geoffroy was very overbearing, and 
 assumed a role which extremely irritated Cuvier. It 
 is generally admitted now that Cuvier went too far, 
 although he refuted, with a surprising number of facts, 
 the arguments presented by Geoffroy on the six great 
 problems: (1) The pre-existence in natural history 
 of the genus; (2) the unity of organic composition; 
 (3) the value of classification; (4) the fixity of species; 
 (5) the final cause; and (6) the succession of organic 
 
i83i-3 2 -] ETIENNE GEOFFROY SAINT-HILAIRE. 45 
 
 life on earth. Thanks to his genius and his unrivalled 
 talent of exposition, Cuvier won before the Academy ; 
 but it was plain that the general public was against 
 him and in favour of Geoffroy. During the last two 
 years of Cuvier's life the discussion was continued, not 
 before the Academy, but in public lectures at the Col- 
 lege de France. Cuvier, with renewed vigour, assailed 
 the unity of organic composition and any general con- 
 ception in natural history. As Isidore Geoffroy says : 
 " Disciple, Cuvier ne pouvait l'etre de personne, et par 
 les tendances propres de son esprit, moins de Geoffroy 
 Saint-Hilaire que de tout autre ; il devint done adver- 
 saire." We may say, to the credit of Geoffroy, that his 
 admiration of Cuvier was not diminished, and at his 
 tomb, with great emotion, and in words of sincerity 
 which had their source in his heart, he proclaimed 
 him " le Maitre a tous ! " 
 
 Agassiz felt strongly the influence of Cuvier ; he had 
 repeated occasion to see and compare Cuvier and 
 Geoffroy, and the superiority of Cuvier was so unde- 
 niable, that many years afterward, when the question of 
 fixity of species, descent, and succession of forms again 
 arose with Darwin's " Origin of Species," he did not 
 hesitate for one moment to oppose a doctrine so full of 
 hypothesis and so contrary to the teachings of his 
 master: " le Maitre a tous!" Agassiz had promptly 
 received the good will and protection of Cuvier, and it 
 is most probable that, if Cuvier's life had been spared, he 
 would have obtained, through his influence, a professor- 
 ship or some place in Paris. For Agassiz was determined 
 not to be a country physician, but to support himself 
 
46 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. hi. 
 
 as a naturalist. It is always very difficult in Paris to get 
 a scientific position, on account of the great number 
 of aspirants always waiting for a favouring opportunity. 
 After a few months, Agassiz soon realized his superi- 
 ority over all the young and even old naturalists, and 
 acknowledged only one master, — George Cuvier ! For 
 Agassiz was not naturally self-distrustful ; he knew his 
 worth, and it was rather humiliating to him to be placed 
 beneath certain savants whose merits and capaci- 
 ties were far below his. He had to reckon with those 
 who held what is called in Paris " positions acquises," 
 that is to say, with savants who had been gradually 
 promoted from very modest places to higher positions. 
 Cuvier's death left vacant a large number of places, 
 and a regular scramble to occupy all the positions he 
 had held began in earnest as soon as he was buried. 
 Not being a Frenchman by birth, Agassiz was at a 
 disadvantage; although an Englishman, Henri Milne- 
 Edwards had the good fortune to push himself forward, 
 and finally succeeded Cuvier. But Edwards, who was 
 older than Agassiz by several years, had been educated 
 in Paris,' and knew how to make use of influence. He 
 made loud claims to being a Frenchman born, because 
 he was accidentally born in Bruges in Belgium during 
 the occupation of that country by the armies of the 
 French Republic. Another competitor was Valen- 
 ciennes, also older than Agassiz, and an assistant of 
 Cuvier, who had begun with Cuvier the publication of 
 the "Histoire naturelle des Poissons vivants." To be 
 sure, the publisher of the work proposed to Agassiz 
 to join Valenciennes as a collaborator; but Humboldt, 
 
1831-32.] APPOINTED PROFESSOR AT NEUCHATEE 47 
 
 who had always taken a strong interest in Valenciennes' 
 welfare, rather discouraged the association, knowing 
 well that Agassiz would soon extinguish all Valen- 
 ciennes' future prospects. Humboldt exerted a strong 
 influence over Agassiz. As minister of Prussia in 
 France, he cunningly worked to detach Agassiz from 
 Paris, increasing rather than diminishing the obstacles 
 and difficulties Agassiz found there, acting in accord with 
 the Prussian governor at Neuchatel, and M. Louis de 
 Coulon, a rich and most benevolent Neuchatelois, who 
 wished in some way to attach Agassiz to the Lyceum 
 of Neuchatel. After the death of Cuvier, Agassiz, 
 with his independent character, was discouraged and 
 distressed by the constant intrigues going on under his 
 eyes in restless Paris. On the other hand, he was still 
 mindful of his happy days in Germany, and desired to 
 return there as a professor in some German university. 
 
 Humboldt, little by little, persuaded Agassiz to accept 
 a very modest — altogether too modest — position as pro- 
 fessor at the Lyceum of Neuchatel as a stepping-stone 
 and a preliminary position to a professorship at Berlin 
 or some other German university. Agassiz hesitated, 
 for he knew very well that Neuchatel was too small a 
 place, and devoid of all resources in natural history ; 
 and his thought was at first to settle at Lausanne, or 
 preferably at Geneva, then already a great scientific 
 centre. But Humboldt and Coulon united their efforts, 
 and at last secured the acceptance of Agassiz, who, in 
 September, 1832, left Paris, to the great joy of all the 
 young French naturalists of the capital ; for he was a 
 formidable rival taken out of the way. 
 
48 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. hi. 
 
 Agassiz always disliked intrigue ; he was frank and 
 very earnest, and, although inclined to authority and 
 adverse to divided pow r er, he was too little French, or 
 more correctly too little Parisian, in character, to like 
 living in a society in which intrigue was as necessary as 
 scientific knowledge to success. He had too high an 
 opinion of science to make compromises and con- 
 stantly bargain for position, influence, and honour. 
 
 With the death of Cuvier vanished all his hopes of a 
 great journey beyond Europe, — a desire which had pur- 
 sued him ever since he began the study of natural his- 
 tory at Zurich with Schink. What he heard in Paris 
 of the great success of Victor Jacquemont in India, and 
 of Alcide d'Orbigny in South America, had increased 
 tenfold his wish to be a travelling naturalist, and the 
 long account given to him by Humboldt of the equinoc- 
 tial regions of the New World increased, if possible, his 
 cherished determination to make an exploring journey. 
 Cuvier had told him that after the return of Jacquemont 
 and d'Orbigny, then daily expected, the annual appro- 
 priation at the disposal of the Museum would be in part 
 free, and might be bestowed on him. His dreams of 
 seeing the great Amazon River were revived, but were 
 not destined to be realized till more than thirty years 
 afterward, under other auspices, and under much more 
 fortunate conditions. 
 
 If Agassiz had been able to make a great exploration 
 into the interior of a continent, or around the world, 
 when he was between twenty-five and thirty-five years 
 of age, what a harvest of facts he would have brought 
 back with him ! It is much to be regretted, both for 
 
1831-32.] NO GREAT EXPLORATION. 49 
 
 himself and for the progress of natural history, that 
 he did not enjoy that privilege. 
 
 It is useless to express regret as we see him burying 
 himself in such a remote place ; for wherever Agas- 
 siz went he carried with him the torch of science, and 
 obliged all the scientific world to look at him and give 
 close attention to what he said and did. 
 
 E 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1832-1835. 
 
 Agassiz's First Establishment at NeuchAtel — Foundation of the 
 "Societe des Sciences Naturelles," on the 6th of December, 
 1832 — An Offer of a Chair at the University of Heidelberg 
 declined — Letter of Humboldt — Engagement of Alexander 
 Braun with Miss Cecile Guyot and that of Karl Schimper 
 with Miss Emmy Braun broken off — Marriage of Agassiz 
 with Miss Cecile Braun — Publication of the First Part of 
 the "Fossil Fishes" — First Visit to England in 1834 — "Mon- 
 ographie des Echinodermes " — Des Moulins's Work on the 
 Same Subject — Criticisms of Humboldt and Von Buch — Second 
 Visit to England in 1835 — Birth of a Son — Four Letters to 
 
 PlCTET AND NlCOLET. 
 
 In November, 1832, Agassiz was established at Neu- 
 chatel as professor of natural history in a small college, 
 at a salary of eighty louis (about $400), and with an 
 appointment of only three years' duration. What 
 tempted him greatly was the opportunity to live in 
 Switzerland, near his family, complete independence 
 in regard to his teaching, and a belief that, notwith- 
 standing the small salary, the expenses of living were 
 so much less than in large cities like Paris or Munich, 
 that $400, or 2000 francs, would " keep him above actual 
 embarrassment." Independence he got; and indepen- 
 dence was a strong trait in his character, and one which 
 explains several of his otherwise rather peculiar deci- 
 
 5° 
 
1832-35-] ESTABLISHMENT AT NEUCHATEL. 51 
 
 sions at different periods of his life. But insufficiency 
 of means, resulting from his want of business capacity, 
 assailed him from the first moment of his arrival in 
 Neuchatel. As to its being a stepping-stone to a posi- 
 tion at Berlin, that expectation was never realized ; all 
 prospects in that direction having been entirely barred, 
 as we shall see, by the part he took in the glacial ques- 
 tion five years later. 
 
 A college in a small town of five or six thousand 
 inhabitants, like Neuchatel in 1832, and after the 
 political and very grave disturbances which occurred 
 there in 183 1, as a consequence of the French Revolu- 
 tion of July, 1830, was, of necessity, a very limited 
 institution. The number of pupils, all told, was 
 below one hundred ; and there were absolutely no ma- 
 terials for study, no collections, not even a room to be 
 used for the new class. Agassiz was obliged to deliver 
 his lectures at the City Hall, in the room of the tribunal 
 of the justice of the peace. With his impetuous and 
 optimistic spirit and his impulsive nature, he went to 
 work, and, without losing a minute, he undertook to 
 form a centre of scientific culture with the rather scanty 
 and rough material at his disposal. With the help of 
 the two Louis de Coulons, father and son, — two of the 
 most devoted, and, at the same time, most modest nat- 
 uralists, — Agassiz arranged a provisional museum in 
 the Orphans' Home, bringing there the already numer- 
 ous specimens of natural history collected by himself in 
 Germany, Switzerland, and France. 
 
 Less than a month after his arrival and the deliv- 
 ery of his inaugural lecture, " Upon the Relations 
 
52 LOUIS AGASSI Z. [chap. iv. 
 
 between the Different Branches of Natural History," 
 which was given on Nov. 12, before all the edu- 
 cated and intelligent men Neuchatel could assemble, 
 his father included, — on the 6th of December, 1832, 
 he founded the " Societe des Sciences Naturelles 
 de Neuchatel," in the parlour of M. Louis de Cou- 
 lon, Sr., who was elected president, while Agassiz 
 was made secretary. During the first six years of 
 its existence the society met at M. de Coulon's 
 private house. It was rather more a scientific club 
 than a true society, meeting twice a month from No- 
 vember until May, and monthly only during the rest 
 of the year. The annual subscription was moderately 
 placed at three francs (sixty cents). Only six persons 
 founded the society, — Agassiz, Auguste de Montmol- 
 lin, the geologist, Louis de Coulon, Jr., and three others. 
 At the end of the first three years of its existence, 
 the number of fellows was only twenty-five, and not 
 more than six or eight members were often present at 
 the meetings. Agassiz was the leading spirit ; and he 
 wrote the proceedings of the sections of natural history 
 and medical science for the years 1833, 1834, 1835, 
 and 1836. His first contribution was a " General Re- 
 port on the Progress of Natural History during the 
 Last Few Years," in which he paid a tribute of admi- 
 ration to George Cuvier, and at the same time lamented 
 the recent death of "Ce heros de la science"; and 
 declared that the only way to success is by " the con- 
 scientious observation of nature." 
 
 Not satisfied with delivering a course to his class at 
 the college, he gathered round him a select and limited 
 
1832-35-] PROFESSORSHIP AT HEIDELBERG. 53 
 
 audience of persons desirous to hear him on zoology, 
 botany, and the philosophy of nature. And when 
 the weather permitted, he used to take all his pupils, 
 young and old, on excursions into the field ; visiting, 
 among other places, the celebrated quarries of the 
 Neocomian at Hauterive, the summit of the Chaumont 
 Mountain, and the shores of the lake. It was a spec- 
 tacle worth seeing. One of those who enjoyed these 
 excursions said to me : " Agassiz was at his best, pass- 
 ing from a plant to a fossil ; from physical geography to 
 a fish, a snail, a bird, an insect, anything that came in 
 his way ; always ready to discourse for hours, and, as 
 usual, full of all sorts of new schemes. Time passed 
 only too quickly in his company." 
 
 Everything then seemed to smile on him ; it was a 
 sort of triumphal entry into life. A few days after his 
 installation at Neuchatel, he received, on the 4th of 
 December, 1832, a proposal to present himself, if he 
 wished, in place of Professor Leuckart, at the Univer- 
 sity of Heidelberg, which he declined to do. He con- 
 sulted Humboldt about the call from Heidelberg, in a 
 letter published by Mrs. Agassiz, Vol. I., pp. 213-217; 
 but as Mrs. Agassiz was unable to give Humboldt's 
 answer, I will give it in full in French, translated from 
 the German by Agassiz himself for his uncle Mayor. 
 
 Berlin, 29 decembre, 1832. 
 
 Lettre d'Alexandre de Humboldt a Louis Agassiz, — 
 
 Je n'ai point d'expression, mon cher Agassiz, pour vous t<5moigner 
 quel grand plaisir me procure chaque ligne que je recois de vous. 
 ainsi que les marques d'amitie' que vous me donnez. Je ne puis 
 excuser le retard que j"ai mis a repondre a votre derniere lettre que 
 
54 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. iv. 
 
 par mon bras manchot et la vie penible que je mene entre Berlin 
 et Potsdam, ou je vais retourner dans un instant et passer quelque 
 jours avec le roi. Vous nVaimez assez pour ne pas vous en facher. 
 Ceci n'est pas non plus une lettre, mais seulement une marque de 
 ma gratitude et mon opinion sur la proposition si honorable qui 
 vous est faite d 1 une chaire de professeur a Heidelberg. Je reconnais, 
 mon cher ami, le grand sacrifice que vous ferez en refusant, mais 
 sans pouvoir de loin apprecier votre position a Neuchatel, et surtout 
 ce qu'elle peut avoir de fixe, je penche cependant pour vous engager 
 a. y rester. Ce pays est en quelque sorte votre patrie ; on vous a 
 recu la, a ce qu'il me parait avec beaucoup d'empressement. II est 
 vrai que par ce choix, vous perdez sensiblement en argent, mais a 
 Neuchatel vous avez plus de temps a. vous, et vous vivez dans une 
 ville riche, ou certainment, en consideration du sacrifice que vous 
 faites, on aidera peut-etre plus qu'ailleurs, soit par reconnoissance, 
 soit par un sentiment d'honneur ou meme de vanite de vous pos- 
 seder (le patriotisme prend toutes ces tonrnures) dans la publication 
 de vos deux grands ouvrages qui doivent etre le but essentiel de 
 votre vie. Un homme de votre talent et de votre savoir, lorsqu'il 
 aura publie ces deux ouvrages, sera place si haut que de telles offres 
 par des universites allemandes ne sauraient manquer d'etre renou- 
 velees. II est vrai que je prefererais Heidelberg a toute autre, meme 
 a Berlin, ou maintenant Tetude des sciences naturelles est assez ne- 
 gligee. Cependant je desirerais qiril fut bien connu par les feuilles 
 publiques que vous avez eu cet appel et que (sans menacer indeli- 
 catement) vous missiez a. profit votre refus pour fixer votre position 
 a Neuchatel, pour accele'rer l'achat de votre collection et pour obtenir 
 la promesse de quelques souscriptions considerables pour vos ou- 
 vrages. Je ferai tout ce qui dependra de moi aupres de M. Ancillon 
 et suis bien certain de ne rencontrer ici aucun obstacle, mais je 
 crains qu'a Neuchatel meme on ne soit un peu intimide par une 
 depense de 600 louis, au moins a. present. En Allemagne, il est 
 maintenant tres difficile d'obtenir quelques cents louis d'un gouverne- 
 ment pour quoique ce soit. On pretexte toujours les probability's 
 d\ine guerre, a laquelle du reste personne ne croit. L'essentiel 
 maintenant me parait (et je vois avec plaisir que vous y visez con- 
 
1832-35-] LETTER OF HUMBOLDT. 55 
 
 stamment) que vous fassiez voir au monde, meme avec des figures 
 moins soignees, ce que vous avez si admirablement bien examine, et 
 si vous ne pouvez pas publier en meme temps ces deux ouvrages, 
 donnez la preference aux fossiles. Vous le pouvez d'autant mieux 
 que vous avez si heureusement decouvert les rapports qui existent 
 entre votre classification des poissons et la succession des forma- 
 tions geologiques. Je suis bien impatient de la connaitre dans tous 
 ses details. Ne negligez pas de consulter sur les fossiles en ge- 
 neral la traduction du manuscrit de de la Beche par Dechen ; c'est 
 lui qui, a. mon avis, rend le mieux compte de Tetat actuel de la 
 geologic C'est aussi Topinion de de Buch. 
 
 Si vous ne pouvez pas commencer promptement la publication 
 de votre ouvrage, il faudrait necessairement pour ne pas etre vole, 
 publier de suite sous vos yeux un memoire en franc, ais dans lequel 
 vous rendriez compte de vos idees generales sur la classification des 
 poissons, leur distribution geographique et geologique, etc. Afin 
 que votre ouvrage produise tout Tefifet qu'il doit faire, restreignez 
 vous aux poissons et ne donnez que quelques indications generales 
 sur les autres organismes. 
 
 Je vous embrasse tendrement, mon cher Agassiz ; assurez votre 
 
 bonne mere de toute mon estime. 
 
 Votre A. Humboldt. 
 
 This letter is, perhaps, the most important and affec- 
 tionate one from Humboldt to his young friend Agassiz. 
 
 Thanks to Humboldt's personal application to the 
 Prussian government, and the initiative subscriptions 
 taken by Louis de Coulon at Neuchatel, a sufficient 
 sum of money was obtained to purchase, for the newly 
 created Museum of Neuchatel, the collections of Agassiz. 
 He received the round sum of 600 louis, or almost 
 $3000. 
 
 With his optimism, always ready to go beyond all 
 reasonable bounds, he thought that in coming to Neu- 
 chatel he had made his fortune; and his first desire 
 
56 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. iv. 
 
 was to get married. As is often the case with stu- 
 dents, the trio, Agassiz, Braun, and Schimper, had 
 promptly fallen in love. They were surrounded by too 
 many young sisters and friends' sisters not to succumb. 
 Agassiz's choice was Cecile Braun ; Schimper became 
 engaged to her older sister Emmy, and Braun himself 
 was soon enamoured of a sister of Arnold Guyot, also 
 called Cecile. As shown by the result, it would seem 
 that it would have been well if the three engagements 
 had been broken off. Alexander Braun, the most rea- 
 sonable and practical of the three, had the good sense 
 not to go too far. His regard for Cecile Guyot of Hau- 
 terive, near Neuchatel, soon took the form of friend- 
 ship. No public engagement was announced, prudence 
 on both sides keeping the matter rather quiet, until, by 
 common consent, Mademoiselle Cecile Guyot, instead 
 of a " manage d'inclination," considered by her very 
 practical family as a great " imprudence," agreed to a 
 " manage de convenance ' at Neuchatel, — a "parti 
 fort avantageux," according to Arnold Guyot, — and, 
 instead of becoming Madame Braun, was contented to 
 call her old sweetheart "son bon frere Alex." * 
 
 Although Alexander Braun was a great admirer of 
 the botanical genius of Karl Schimper, he soon saw the 
 weak point of his character. After waiting several 
 years from the time of the engagement in 1832, Miss 
 Emmy Braun realized too well the unfitness of Schimper, 
 and, with the help of her brother, broke the engage- 
 
 1 See "Alexander Braun's Leben," by Mrs. C. Mettenius, where are 
 many details of the whole affair, even including letters of Braun to Cecile 
 Guyot. 
 
1832-35] FIRST MARRIAGE. 57 
 
 ment in 1840. Miss Emmy Braun was born in January, 
 1807, and was as gifted as her younger sister Cecile, 
 being an excellent musician. In the spring of 1841 
 she married Mr. Eichhorn, Hofmuziker at Carlsruhe. 
 All four of the Braun children were talented. 
 
 As for the engagement of Agassiz and Miss Cecile 
 Braun, although Alexander and his mother were not 
 very enthusiastic in regard to it, — for both saw how 
 fully Louis was engrossed in his studies and in himself, 
 and realized his tendency to fly from one subject to 
 another, and his want of steadiness and of business 
 capacity, — nevertheless during the vacation of 1833, 
 it became " un fait accompli " ; and in October Agassiz 
 brought his wife home to Neuchatel, to a small apart- 
 ment " au faubourg du Lac," No. 21. 
 
 Mrs. Cecile Agassiz, born at Carlsruhe the 29th of 
 July, 1809, was a lady with regular and fine features, 
 slender, and of very dark complexion, so much so that 
 she looked more like an Italian or Spaniard than a 
 German. She possessed rare artistic talents, being a 
 pupil of an artist of some repute, Marie Ellenrieder of 
 the Nazarean school, after the style of Fra Angelico. 
 Before her marriage she made many aquarelles of fossil 
 and fresh-water fishes for her " fiance," remarkably 
 exact and well executed, which rivalled those made by 
 the painter Dinkel. She also painted specimens of 
 plants for her brother Alexander. Besides this, she 
 was well acquainted with German literature, and was 
 generally an accomplished young lady. She was a 
 great favourite in her family, and was widely acquainted 
 in Carlsruhe. She was greatly disappointed in Neu- 
 
58 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. iv. 
 
 chatel ; everything was so different from her delightful 
 home at Carlsruhe. She did not speak French fluently, 
 and possessing to a high degree the German placidity 
 which borders on complete indifference, she was not 
 well impressed by what she saw, and from the first 
 disliked all Agassiz's friends and acquaintances. Ac- 
 customed to the beautiful green fields and forests of 
 the vicinity of Carlsruhe, she found herself enclosed 
 by dusty or muddy roads, by high vineyard walls, and 
 the rather inhospitable aspect of the houses : all this, 
 with the reserve and rather cold manners of the inhabi- 
 tants, disposed to copy the formality of the Prussian 
 court, displeased her so much that she soon greatly dis- 
 liked the " Neuchatelois," Neuchatel, and even Switzer- 
 land. For her, Carlsruhe was paradise on earth, and 
 her only wish was to return and live there. 
 
 Agassiz, during the first three years of his married 
 life, showed more than at any other period the brilliancy 
 of his rare intellect, the deepness of his devotion to the 
 progress of natural history, and the greatness of the 
 effort he was able to make to place himself among 
 the foremost naturalists of the time. 
 
 During the spring of 1834, the first number of the 
 " Poissons fossiles " came out, and made a great sensa- 
 tion among geologists and zoologists. The subject had 
 until then baffled all palaeontologists, no one having 
 ventured to go deeply into it, on account of osteologic 
 difficulties and the material obstacle of drawings. The 
 most difficult to please declared the work remarkably 
 executed, and Agassiz received approbation and con- 
 gratulations from every quarter. Undoubtedly the first 
 
1 832-35.] FIRST VISIT TO ENGLAND. 59 
 
 "livraison" fully deserved such a reception. Agassiz 
 never surpassed, perhaps never equalled, that first 
 number of the " Fossil Fishes." It is the work of a 
 great master. 
 
 A few days after, in May, 1834, another memoir, 
 also very remarkable, was read before the Natural 
 History Society of Neuchatel on " Quelques Especcs 
 de Cyprins du lac de Neuchatel " (" Memoires Soc. Sc. 
 nat. de Neuchatel," Vol. I., p. 33). In this Agassiz 
 shows his tendency to create new genera and his admi- 
 rable talent for description of species and for classifica- 
 tion. 
 
 In August, 1834, Agassiz made a long-desired visit 
 to England. Buckland, Lyell, and others received him 
 with open arms. His visit coincided with Francois 
 Arago's journey to collect material for his academic 
 eulogy of Watts, and as he had become well acquainted 
 with Arago during his sojourn at Paris in 1832, they 
 were much together, meeting at Oxford at the hos- 
 pitable home of Buckland, and travelling together to 
 Edinburgh, and back to Paris. 
 
 Agassiz found such a wealth of fossil fishes that he 
 wrote at once to his artist, Dinkel, to come over. One 
 of the rooms of the Geological Society, then at the 
 Somerset House, was generously placed at his disposal 
 by the society, and as soon as he had collected there 
 some two thousand specimens, he began in earnest his 
 studies of comparison, determination, and classification, 
 and directed Dinkel to draw all specimens worthy of 
 being reproduced for his great monograph, or even 
 such as might prove useful afterward for general 
 
60 LOUIS AGASS1Z. [chap. iv. 
 
 description. Dinkel remained in England for several 
 years, either in London, or at the country seat of 
 Philip Egerton, near Chester, and at Enniskillen in Ire- 
 land, and made one of the best and most valuable 
 collections of drawings of fossil fishes, which was after- 
 ward purchased by the subscriptions of English geolo- 
 gists, and presented to the British Museum. 
 
 On the 3d of December, 1834, at a meeting of the 
 Neuchatel Society of Natural History, Agassiz deliv- 
 ered a lecture on the present state of natural science 
 in England, on the splendid collections of fossils and 
 living animals there, and more particularly on the great 
 progress and extraordinary enlargement of the Zoologi- 
 cal Garden of London. 
 
 The echinoderms had already attracted much of his 
 attention. The peculiar beauties of these fossils, their 
 great numbers around Neuchatel and in the Jura Moun- 
 tains, and the ease of identifying them, even from 
 fragments, led him to undertake a " Monographic des 
 Echinodermes." At the meeting of the Neuchatel 
 Society, Jan. 10, 1834, he made a communication, in 
 abstract, of the main discoveries already arrived at 
 by his researches, and his memoir entitled, " Notice 
 sur les fossiles du terrain cretace du Jura Neuchate- 
 lois " (" Memoire Soc. Sc. nat. de Neuchatel," Vol. I., 
 p. 126, 1835) began his series of publications on " Echi- 
 nides." He describes twelve species found in the cre- 
 taceous rocks of Neuchatel, eight of which were entirely 
 new. The paper is marked by great originality of 
 classification, clearness of description, and exactness of 
 
1832-35 •] PRODROME DES ECHINODERMES. 61 
 
 drawing. It succeeded better than any other publica- 
 tion in showing that the cretaceous strata of Neuchatel 
 were a special formation, differing from the Green 
 Sand and Gault of England, and, at the same time, 
 younger than the Portland stone of the Jurassic sys- 
 tem. At that time, the name Neocomian, to designate 
 the Neuchatel strata of the Lower Cretaceous had not 
 yet been used by Thurmann, who offered it at a meet- 
 ing of Jurassian geologists at Besancon, in September, 
 
 1835. 
 The " Prodrome d'une monographie des Radiaires ou 
 
 Echinodermes," read also before the Neuchatel Society 
 on the 10th of January, 1834, was published in 1835, at 
 page 168 of the first volume of the memoirs of that 
 society ; it is the starting-point of all the publications 
 on the echinoderms, according to the principles of 
 classification of Cuvier. Agassiz followed the method 
 of his master ; and in the first twelve pages he gives a 
 most remarkable exposition of their zoological charac- 
 ters, and of his views on the classification and deter- 
 mination of the genera of that class of marine animals. 
 Curiously enough, a year and a half later, in August, 1835, 
 Charles Des Moulins, an able zoologist of Bordeaux, 
 without any knowledge of the works of Agassiz, pub- 
 lished his "Etudes sur les Echinides," in three papers; 
 Bordeaux, 1835-1837. The first two, published in August 
 and December, 1835, contain no reference to Agassiz's 
 researches; but the third paper, dated September, 1837, 
 contests the priority of some of the genera created by 
 Agassiz. As a whole, the two memoirs by Agassiz and 
 

 62 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. iv. 
 
 Des Moulins contain many similar results, and their coin- 
 cidence of publication and of result, due to a mere 
 accident, is very honourable to both. Des Moulins pre- 
 sented more facts and observations on the living and 
 Tertiary echinoderms, while Agassiz brought forward 
 more new forms and new genera from the secondary 
 (Cretaceous and Jurassic) echinoderms, and also a 
 better bibliographical knowledge of the subject. 
 
 The " Tableaux synonymiques des Echinides " of Des 
 Moulins, is another " Prodrome," corrected and finished, 
 according to Des Moulins himself, in April, 1837, more 
 than a year after the publication of Agassiz's " Pro- 
 drome." Des Moulins says that when, on the point of 
 finishing the manuscript of his " Tableaux synony- 
 miques," he received from Agassiz a copy of his " Pro- 
 drome," and that he was thus enabled to interpolate all 
 Agassiz's synonymy, including also the names of species 
 described in works by several writers which Des Mou- 
 lins did not possess and had never seen. The question 
 of priority was settled by Des Moulins, in favour of 
 Agassiz ; Des Moulins's claims to priority being lim- 
 ited to two genera : Collyrites instead of Disaster of 
 Agassiz, and Echinocidaris instead of Arbacia of Gray; 
 a detail simply in Agassiz's classification of the great 
 family of Echinoderms. 
 
 The winter of 1834-183 5 and all the spring of 1835 
 were devoted to his great work on fossil fishes, the echi- 
 noderm studies being considered by Agassiz as a sort of 
 relaxation and recreation. New numbers of the " Pois- 
 sons fossiles " were issued, the text not corresponding 
 
I832-35-] SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 63 
 
 with the atlas of plates, which at the time rendered rather 
 difficult and confusing the task of those who wanted 
 to follow him. His two friends of Berlin, Leopold von 
 Buch and Alexander von Humboldt, complained of this, 
 and von Buch went so far as to call his method of issu- 
 ing text in fragments from different volumes diabolical. 
 Humboldt, although calling Agassiz, in his letter of the 
 10th of May, 1835, "a great and profound naturalist," 
 and speaking of his "admiration of your eminent 
 works," adds : " I also complain a little, though in all 
 humility ; but I suppose it to be due to the difficulty of 
 concluding any one family of (fossil fishes), when new 
 materials are daily accumulating on your hands. Con- 
 tinue then as before. In my judgment, M. Agassiz 
 never does wrong." To any one who knows how 
 sarcastic and sharp Humboldt was, it is surprising 
 to see him treating Agassiz so tenderly, using circum- 
 locution in admonishing him, and placing the burden 
 of sharpest criticism on his friend von Buch. 
 
 The isolation of Agassiz in a small town, beyond 
 direct intercourse with other naturalists and savants in 
 general, had already begun to tell. If he had been 
 exposed to daily friction with his fellow-naturalists, he 
 would have avoided many mistakes and false steps. 
 
 In July, 1835, Agassiz took his young wife on a visit 
 to her parents at Carlsruhe, and left her there while he 
 went a second time to England, where he remained until 
 the end of October, working hard at descriptions of all 
 the fossil fishes he had collected the previous year, and 
 revising and directing the work of his two artists; for 
 
64 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. iv. 
 
 besides Dinkel, he now had a second draughtsman, M. 
 Weber, another of his Munich friends. The expenses 
 had grown so large that he began to think that he had 
 " committed an imprudence in throwing myself into an 
 enterprise so vast in proportion to my means as my 
 ' Poissons fossiles.' His publisher, Cotta of Stuttgart, 
 had abandoned the undertaking as being too expensive 
 and attended with too many alcas> and Agassiz bravely 
 resolved to be his own publisher, — a very rash decision 
 on his part, taking into account his complete lack of 
 business capacity ; but as he says : " Having begun it, I 
 have no alternative ; my only safety is in success. I 
 have a firm conviction that I shall bring my work to 
 a happy issue, though often in the evening I hardly 
 know how the mill is to be turned to-morrow." 
 
 At the meeting of the British Association for the 
 advancement of science in Dublin, which Agassiz at- 
 tended, another appropriation of one hundred guineas, 
 similar to the one voted the preceding year toward the 
 facilitating of researches upon English fossil fishes, was 
 granted him, which allowed him to pay his two artists. 
 His presence in England and Ireland greatly helped 
 the subscriptions to his work. English savants acted 
 generously, and Agassiz's reputation grew rapidly 
 among them. But, nevertheless, English enthusiasm 
 never went so far as to offer him a single official posi- 
 tion during his whole life. 
 
 In France the number of subscriptions was far below 
 what it was in England, only fifteen copies being dis- 
 posed of. Again, at this time, the loss of Cuvier was 
 
I832-35-] BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT DUBLIN. 65 
 
 felt ; for he alone would have had the power to get a 
 subscription for fifty or sixty copies from the govern- 
 ment, as he did for his " Poissons vivants," which would 
 have placed Agassiz at ease. Properly engineered, 
 Agassiz might have succeeded in getting the French 
 government interested in his great work, but for some 
 reason he withdrew from the undertaking, and did not 
 even make an attempt in that direction during his stay 
 in Paris. 
 
 An incident occurred at Dublin, during the meeting 
 of the British Association, which was recorded in a 
 letter from Adam Sedgwick to Lyell, dated Sept. 20, 
 1835. Sedgwick says: "Agassiz joined us at Dub- 
 lin, and read a long paper to our section (the Geo- 
 logical Section). But what think you ? Instead of 
 teaching us what we wanted to know, and giving us of 
 the overflowing of his abundant ichthyological wealth, 
 he read a long, stupid, hypothetical dissertation on 
 geology, drawn from the depths of his ignorance. And, 
 among other marvels, he told us that each formation 
 {e.g., the lias and the chalk) was formed at one moment 
 by a catastrophe, and that the fossils were by such 
 catastrophes brought from some unknown region, and 
 deposited where we find them. When he sat down, I 
 brought him up again, by some specific questions about 
 his ichthyological system, and then he both instructed 
 and amused us. I hope we shall, before long, be able 
 to get this moonshine out of his head, or at least pre- 
 vent him from publishing it. His great work is going 
 on admirably well. I think it is by far the most impor- 
 
 F 
 
66 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. iv. 
 
 tant work now on hand in the geological world " (" Life 
 and Letters of Sedgwick," Vol. I., p. 447, Cambridge, 
 1890). Agassiz wisely withdrew his very objectionable 
 paper. It was one of the weak points of his disposition 
 to indulge in wild suppositions on subjects of which he 
 knew very little, and to plunge into speculation abso- 
 lutely out of his range of research. 
 
 It was on this occasion, at a festival at Florence 
 Court, the seat of Lord Enniskillen, that Enniskillen, 
 as it was related by his son, Lord Cole, to Lyell, was 
 put " in great good humour," for long time after, by 
 the perfect coolness with which Agassiz made " Murchi- 
 son and some other guest glorious, and Sedgwick com- 
 fortable." 1 Such a jolly set of hammer-bearers Lord 
 Enniskillen had never seen before, and Murchison 
 acknowledged that he had found in Agassiz his master. 
 At the hospitable table of Lord Enniskillen the old 
 Munich student proved a match for the old trooper of 
 the Peninsula War. 
 
 Not long after his return to Neuchatel, a son, Alex- 
 ander, so named in honour of Agassiz's best friend, Alex- 
 ander Braun, was born on the 1st of December, 1835. 
 For more than one reason it was a great event in the 
 family, for from that moment Mrs. Agassiz, who showed 
 herself at once an excellent and most careful mother, 
 entirely abandoned pencil and books, and devoted all 
 her time and strength to her son, and afterward to her 
 two daughters, — one Ida, born Aug. 8, 1837; an ^ the 
 other, Pauline, born Feb. 8, 1841. 
 
 1 " Life of Sir Charles Lyell," Vol. I., p. 457, and also "Life and Let- 
 ters of Sedgwick," Vol. I., p. 445. 
 
1832-35.] LETTER TO PICTET. 67 
 
 Indeed, with the scanty means at her disposal, Mrs. 
 Agassiz had her hands full, and even more than full, 
 as we shall see by and by ; and it is not surprising that 
 she could no longer manifest active interest in her hus- 
 band's scientific work. It would have been beyond 
 human power to continue her work of drawing fossil 
 fishes and helping at manuscripts. 
 
 But we must not anticipate: let us return to Agassiz's 
 various and constantly increasing work at Neuchatel. 
 Four letters written at this time to two naturalists, who 
 were counted among his best and most trusted friends, 
 Jules Pictet of Geneva and Celestin Nicolet of La 
 Chaux-de-fonds, will give an intimate view of his 
 scientific activity. 
 
 Neuchatel, 24 novembre, 1833. 
 Monsieur Jules Pictet, 
 
 a Geneve. 
 
 • 
 
 Monsieur, — Je viens de recevoir votre lettre et je nVempresse 
 d'y repondre, dans Tespoir d'obtenir le plus vite possible les objets 
 que vous voulez bien offrir a notre Musee. J'espere que des a 
 present, nous pourrons entrer en relations cTechanges suivies. M. 
 Coulon et moi sommes dans ce moment occupe's a ranger, et a deter- 
 miner les collections, pour en mettre les doubles a notre disposition, 
 ce qui facilitera beaucoup nos e'changes. . . . En echange nous 
 pouvons vous offrir en general surtout des Poissons surtout plu- 
 sieurs especes d'eau douce nouvelles et inedites, des Mollusques 
 en esprit de vin et des coquilles d'especes vivantes, des coquilles 
 fossiles surtout du Lias et des etages jurassiques inferieurs du 
 Wurtemberg, des Zoophytes en esprit de vin et des fossiles ; des 
 roches, surtout des series completes du Gres Bigare, du Muschelkalk, 
 du Keuper et des terrains jurassiques ; les fossiles et les roches de la 
 Craie des environs de Neuchatel qui sont ties nombreux. Nous 
 avons aussi beaucoup de doubles des plantes d'AUemagne. \ oila 
 
68 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. iv. 
 
 done assez de materiaux pour faire de nombreux echanges ; veuillez 
 seulement, s'il vous plait preciser davantage ce que vous desirez 
 recevoir d'abord, et puisque vous voulez bien nous faire le premier 
 envoi ne pas trop tarder a. le faire. Si vous aviez, des Dicer as et en 
 general des fossiles de la Montagne des Fis (Savoie), vous nous 
 obligeriez beaucoup de nous en envoyer, nous voudrions pouvoir les 
 comparer avec notre Craie. Si vous avez des especes de poissons 
 du Bresil qui ne soient pas mentionnees dans mon ouvrage, elles 
 seraient aussi bien venues pour notre Musee. 
 
 Je fais maintenant imprimer la 2 fe me Hvraison des " Poissons fos- 
 siles/'' qui contiendra la description des genres Platysomus, Tetra- 
 gonolepis, Dapedium y Lemionotus, et Lepidotus, et une partie de 
 l'Osteologie generale des poissons. II est facheux que les publica- 
 tions periodiques obligent les auteurs a. morceler leurs sujets ; mais 
 enfin avec le temps on finit par les rendre complets. 
 
 Puisqirenfin vous voulez bien nvoffrir votre appui dans mes 
 rechercbes sur les objets qui vous entourent de plus pres, oserai-je 
 vous prier de bien vouloir m'adresser par la Messagerie, un jour 
 qu'il fera froid ; un exemplaire de votre Gravanche, et une ou deux 
 de Fera, de differentes dimensions. Je vous offre en echange les 
 Coregones du lac de Constance, de Baviere et de Neuchatel. Je 
 crois avoir vide la question des Salmones d'Europe, ce n'est plus 
 qiva. la synonymie que je dois donner encore quelques soins ; aussi 
 je cherche a. receuillir tous les noms de province. Cuvier dans 
 la 2* me edition du " Regne Animal " a admis beaucoup trop 
 d'especes. 
 
 Agreez, Monsieur, Tassurance de mon devouement, et de ma con- 
 sideration distinguee. 
 
 Ls. Agassiz. 
 
1832-35-] LETTER TO PICTET 69 
 
 Neuchatel, 22 avril, 1835. 
 Monsieur Jules Pictet, 
 a Geneve. 
 
 Monsieur, — Depuis que j'ai eu le plaisir de correspondre avec vous 
 pour notre premier echange, Farrangement de nos poissons s'est tres 
 avance et une grande partie de la collection est trie'e, et les doubles 
 sont mis a part. II nous est done maintenant bien plus facile d'ef- 
 fectuer les ^changes que precedemment ; cependant nos catalogues 
 ne sont point encore faits. Cest pour cette raison, Monsieur, que 
 tout en acceptant avec reconnaissance roffre que vous me faites pour 
 notre Musee, je vous prierais si cela pouvait vous convenir, de bien 
 vouloir nous envoyer un exemplaire de toutes les especes de poissons 
 exotiques que vous possedez ; en revanche, je vous adresserai tout ce 
 que vous n'avez pas encore de mes poissons d^au douce, et si cela ne 
 suffit pas, j'ai encore quelques exemplaires de poissons des grandes 
 rivieres du Bresil. Enfin j'ai rapporte d'Angleterre une telle masse 
 de fossiles, que je ne serais pas embarrasse de vous transmettre lequi- 
 valent des poissons que vous me feriez parvenir. Si parmi vos especes 
 il s'en trouvait que nous eussions, ce dont je doute, je pourrais vous 
 les renvoyer avec les notres. 
 
 S'il vous manque beaucoup de poissons de la Mediterranee, je 
 pourrais vous en fournir beaucoup. Je desirerais egalement beau- 
 coup connaitre les poissons du lac de Lugano, du moins les especes 
 des genres critiques. 
 
 Je pense ne plus renvoyer d'un an, la publication de mes " Pois- 
 sons d'eau douce"; la 5^ livraison des (Poissons) fossiles paraitra 
 dans six semaines. 
 
 Agreez, M^onsieur, Passurance de ma consideration distinguoc. et 
 de mon entier devouement. 
 
 Ls. Acjassiz. 
 
70 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. iv. 
 
 NEUCHATEL, le 4 Mars, 1834. 
 Monsieur Celestin Nicolet, 
 
 a La Chaux-de-fonds. 
 
 Monsieur, — J'ai recu il y a 15 jours et lu le meme soir a notre 
 societe la notice detaillee que vous nous avez adressee sur le calcaire 
 lithographique des Montagnes (de Neuchatel). Votre communica- 
 tion a excite Tinteret qu'elle merite et tous les membres de la soci- 
 ete vous feliciteront de votre zele si vous parvenez a decouvrir 
 quelque localite 011 Ton puisse lever des plaques assez grandes pour 
 executer les travaux lithographiques. 
 
 II se rattache une question geologique a. vos recherches qui me 
 parait importante sous le point de vue scientifique, c'est Tapprecia- 
 tion rigoureuse des rapports de position qui existe entre votre 
 calcaire lithographique et celui de Sohlenhofen. En Baviere le 
 calcaire est stratifie en couches horizontales et c'est surement de 
 la que vient la beaute' des pierres de Sohlenhofen ; tandisque dans 
 la chaine du Jura tous les calcaires ont ete disloques pas des sou- 
 levements posterieurs a. leur deposition et sont par consequent tres 
 fendilles. II serait bien interessant d'avoir une collection un peu 
 etendue des fossiles de votre calcaire afin de pouvoir les comparer 
 avec le grand nombre de ceux que Ton trouve a Sohlenhofen ; ce 
 serait un moyen de plus de determiner les relations geologiques 
 de ces depots. Si vous avez occasion d'en receuillir, ne le negligez 
 pas ; ce serait un grand service que vous nous rendriez de nous en 
 adresser le plus d'echantillons possibles. 
 
 Agreez, Monsieur, Passurance de ma consideration distinguee. 
 
 Ls. Agassiz. 
 
 Neuchatel, le 19 Mars, 1835. 
 Monsieur Celestin Nicolet, 
 
 a. La Chaux-de-fonds. 
 
 Monsieur, — La Societe des Sciences Naturelles de Neuchatel 
 ayant decide dlmprimer ses memoires a nomme un comite pour en 
 faire un choix et soigner ^impression. Ce comite desirant voir vos 
 observations geologiques figurer dans son receuil nfa charge de 
 vous demander Tautorisation de faire imprimer votre notice sur 
 
 
 
1832-35.] LETTER TO C. ATCOLET 71 
 
 la pierre lithographique des montagnes, 1 en vous priant d'y ajouter 
 d'abord vos nouvelles observations sur les gisement de ces couches, 
 sur leur age geologique, et sur les fossiles qu'elles contiennent. 
 Vous nous obligerez infiniment en repondant bientot a notre appel. 
 Deja les premieres feuilles de nos Memoires sont imprimees. 
 
 J'ai beaucoup regrette de ne m'etre pas trouve a Neuchatel 
 lorsque vous vous y etes reunis avec Messieurs Voltz, Thurmann et 
 Thirria ; mais j'espere avoir bientot le plaisir de faire votre con- 
 noissance, M. Ladame m'ayant propose il y a deja quelques temps 
 de faire une course avec lui a la Chaux-de-fonds. 
 
 Agreez, Monsieur, l'assurance de ma consideration tres distinguee. 
 
 Ls. Agassiz. 
 
 1 " Essai sur le calcaire lithographique des environs de La Chaux-de- 
 fonds " (" Memoires de la Soc. Sc. nat. de Neuchatel," Vol. I., p. 66, 1835). 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 1S36-1837. 
 
 The Wollaston Medal — First Paper of de Charpentier ox the 
 Glacial Theory — Venetz's Observations on Large Boulders 
 perched on the sldes of the alpine valleys — dr. hermann 
 Lebert, the First Disciple and Pupil of de Charpentier and 
 Venetz — Extract from de Charpentier's First Paper — Agas- 
 siz's Summer Vacation at Bex, near the House of de Char- 
 pentier — Conversion of Agassiz to the Glacial Theory; His 
 Creation of the Ice-age — Karl Schimper visits Agassiz at Bex 
 and at neuchatel — dlscours de neuchatel july 24, 1 837, on 
 the Ice-age. 
 
 The year 1836 was happily inaugurated by the 
 reception of the Wollaston Medal, awarded to Agassiz 
 by the Geological Society of London, at its annual 
 meeting on February 19. The President, Charles 
 Lyell, a life-long friend of Agassiz, in presenting 
 the medal, said : — 
 
 On a former occasion we presented the proceeds of the Donation 
 Fund 1 for one year to the same distinguished naturalist, to assist 
 him in the publication of the early part of his great work, the 
 importance of which was then only beginning to be known to 
 the scientific world. It will ever be a subject of gratification to us 
 to have learned that this small pecuniary aid was not without its 
 influence in accelerating the publication of his " Researches on 
 
 1 The sum of thirty guineas, or £31, 10s. sterling. 
 
 72 
 
1 $36-37-] / / 'OLL. \STON MEDAL. 73 
 
 Fossil Fish/' arriving as it did opportunely at a moment when the 
 funds which could be appropriated for the undertaking were nearly 
 exhausted. Mr. Agassiz acknowledged at the time his obligation 
 to us for a mark of sympathy and regard which he received so 
 unexpectedly from a foreign country, and which cheered and ani- 
 mated him to fresh exertions. The Council, in now awarding the 
 Medal to him, are desirous that he should possess a lasting testi- 
 mony of their esteem and of the high sense which they entertain of 
 the merit of his scientific labours. 
 
 It was a well-deserved reward, received when quite a 
 young man, — in his thirtieth year only, — which did 
 honour to the Geological Society of London as well as 
 to the recipient. Never since has the Wollaston Medal 
 been bestowed on so young a naturalist ; his is a unique 
 case, and as such is recorded on the List of Awards 
 of the Wollaston Medal. 
 
 In 1834, at the meeting of the Helvetic Society of 
 Naturalists, at Lucerne, Jean de Charpentier, Director 
 of the Salt Works at Bex, Canton de Vaud, had read a 
 short paper entitled, " Notice sur la cause probable du 
 transport des blocs erratiques de la Suisse." Seldom, if 
 ever, has such a small memoir so deeply excited the 
 scientific world. It was received at first with incredulity 
 and even scorn and mockery, Agassiz being among 
 its opponents. Its publication, however, a year later, 
 and again eighteen months later, in the " Annales des 
 Mines" of Paris, Vol. VIII., p. 219, and in the " Biblio- 
 theque universelle ' : of Geneva, Vol. IV., p. 1, with a 
 German translation by Julius Froebel and Oswald 
 Heer, in " Mittheil. aus dem gebiete der theoret. 
 erdkunde," p. 482, Zurich, attracted much attention, 
 and the smile of incredulity with which it was received 
 
74 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. v. 
 
 when read at Lucerne soon changed into a desire to 
 know more about it. 
 
 A mountaineer, Perraudin, of the Bagnes valley, at 
 the foot of the St. Bernard, in Valais, told de Charpentier, 
 as far back as 1815, that the large boulders perched on 
 the sides of the Alpine valleys were carried and left 
 there by glaciers. De Charpentier thought the hypoth- 
 esis so extraordinary and extravagant that it was not 
 worth examining or even considering. Fourteen years 
 later, in 1829, at the meeting of the Swiss naturalists 
 at the Grand St. Bernard's Hospital, his good and 
 most esteemed friend, the engineer of the " Ponts et 
 Chaussees " of the Valais Canton, M. Venetz, not only 
 supported the view advanced by Perraudin, but told 
 the Society that his observations led him to believe that 
 the whole Valais has been formerly covered by an 
 immense glacier, and that it even extended outside of 
 the canton, covering all the "Canton de Vaud " as far 
 as the Jura Mountains, carrying all the boulders and 
 erratic materials, which are now scattered all over the 
 large Swiss valley. In 1821 the extremely modest 
 Venetz had read before the Swiss naturalists a paper 
 entitled, " Memoire sur les variations de la temperature 
 des Alpes de la Suisse." In some way the memoir was 
 left entirely unnoticed, and the manuscript put aside. 
 De Charpentier, as soon as he was convinced of the 
 correctness of the Venetz theory, hunted up the man- 
 uscript, which was buried under the dust of the archives 
 of the Helvetic Society of Naturalists, and had it finally 
 printed and published, in 1833, — twelve years after it 
 was written, — in " Erstern Bandes zweyte abtheilung," 
 
1836-37-] OLD GLACIERS LN VALAIS. 75 
 
 of the " Dcnkschiftcn der allgemeine Schwcizcrischcn 
 Gescllschaft fiir die gesammten Naturwissenchaften." 
 
 As this initial memoir on the glacial epoch is 
 extremely rare, I will quote the conclusions and one 
 paragraph : — 
 
 Monsieur Perraudin, conseiller de la commune de Bagnes, habile 
 chasseur de chamois, et amateur de ces sortes d^bservations [on 
 old moraines], nous a assure que les glaciers de Severen, de Loui, 
 et de la Chaux-de-Sarayer, tous dans la vallee de Bagnes, ont des 
 moraines fort reconnaissables, qui sont environ a une lieue de la 
 glace actuelle. . . . 
 
 Nous sommes done en quelques manieres autorises a croire : — 
 
 1) Que les moraines qui se trouvent a. une distance considerable 
 des glaciers, datent d\ine epoque qui se perd dans les nuits des 
 temps. . . . 
 
 6) Que les glaciers parviendront difficilement a. la hauteur gigan- 
 tesque, dont nous trouvons tant de vestiges. . . . 
 
 Civil Engineer Venetz was not educated as a scientific 
 man, and he did not understand the scientific method of 
 marshalling and classifying facts and observations. But 
 he found in his friend de Charpentier the best possible 
 man to systematize and construct a new science. If it 
 was Venetz who developed and sustained the hypothesis 
 of the chamois hunter, Perraudin, and awaked de Char- 
 pentier's interest in the question, it was de Charpentier, 
 who by his scientific method of observation, his clear 
 and logical reasoning, accumulated and classified on 
 truly scientific bases all the material proofs, such as the 
 moraines, the rocJies moiitonnccs polies et st rices, the 
 cailloux stric's, the bone glaciaire, etc., and to de Char- 
 pentier is due the glacial doctrine and the glacial theory. 
 
 As early as 1833, de Charpentier had gathered round 
 
76 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. v. 
 
 him at Bex, pupils and believers in the new science, 
 including among the first ones O. Heer, afterward so 
 celebrated for his researches in fossil botany and fossil 
 entomology, E. Thomas, the botanist, and the learned 
 Dr. H. Lebert. The latter, a brilliant German political 
 refugee from Breslau, an enthusiastic friend and great 
 admirer of de Charpentier, who justly compared the 
 splendid and characteristic profile of de Charpentier to 
 that of Keppler and of Galileo, and pronounced his 
 head as typical of a savant, came to Bex in August, 
 1833, and was there convinced of the soundness of the 
 views of Venetz and de Charpentier. For him the beau- 
 tiful demonstrations of de Charpentier were conclusive, 
 and left no doubt; so much so that in 1834, on the 
 occasion of his receiving his degree of Doctor of Medi- 
 cine at Zurich, and before de Charpentier had read 
 his paper at Lucerne, he gave a public lecture on 
 the glacial theory. 
 
 The just and honest Heer, in his " Le Monde primi- 
 tif de la Suisse," has nobly upheld the claims of de 
 Charpentier, saying : " C'est Jean de Charpentier qui 
 le premier donna une base scientifique a cette hypothese 
 par une serie de recherches consciencieuses et par une 
 rigoureuse combinaison des faits connus." And he 
 further says : " Jean de Charpentier est le fondateur 
 de la theorie des glaciers." 
 
 The short paper of de Charpentier contains some of 
 the fundamental principles on which the glacial theory 
 is based, and is so important that some extracts will be 
 acceptable to all those who like to follow the history of 
 a great discovery from its infancy. 
 
1836-37-] DE CHARPENTIER'S FIRST PAPER. 77 
 
 Extracts from Notice sur la Cause Probable du 
 
 Transport des Blocs Erratiques de la Suisse; par 
 
 M. J. de Charpentier, Directeur des mines du canton dc 
 
 Vaud. {Ext rait du Tome VIII dcs "Annates dcs Mines" 
 
 pp. 20. Paris, 1835.) 
 
 M. Venetz, en etudiant les glaciers, a ete conduit a s'occuper des 
 blocs erratiques transported par la vallee du Rhone, et Texamen 
 qu'il a fait de ces blocs, et des diverses circonstances qui les accom- 
 pagnent, Ta convaincu que leur transport ma pas pu s'effectuer par 
 le moyen de l'eau, quelque enormes qu'on suppose son volume et sa 
 vitesse, et quelque puissante que soit son action. . . . 
 
 Les depots des blocs erratiques presentent constamment un 
 melange informe de fragmens de toutes les dimensions, depuis celle 
 d\m grain de sable jusqu'a celle de plusieurs milliers de pieds cubes. 
 On trouve sur le Jura des blocs aussi volumineux que dans les val- 
 lees des Alpes. II n'existe done point de triage selon les volumes 
 et les poids relatifs des blocs, ce qui necessairement aurait du avoir 
 lieu s'ils avaient ete entralnes et amends par l'eau ; car, dans ce 
 cas, les plus gros blocs devraient se trouver les plus voisins du lieu 
 d'ou la debacle et le courant les auraient enleves, et ces fragmens 
 devraient diminuer de volume a. mesure qu'ils en sont plus eloignes, 
 de maniere que les blocs qiron trouve sur les pentes du Jura 
 devraient etre en general sensiblement plus petits que ceux qu'on 
 rencontre au pied et dans les vallees des Alpes. Mais, nous le 
 repetons, un pareil arrangement ne s'observe nulle part. . . . 
 
 Quoique la plupart des blocs erratiques presentent une forme 
 arrondie evidemment par frottement, on en trouve neanmoins qui 
 sont non-seulement aplatis, mais qui sont restes presque intacts, 
 ayant a peine leurs angles et leurs aretes ecornees ou emoussccs. 
 Si leur deplacement avait eu lieu par un courant, on ne saurait pas 
 concevoir comment ils auraient pu etre routes jusques au pied du 
 Jura et pousses sur son faite, sans porter des marques violentes de 
 frottement. 
 
 Les depots de ces roches transporters presentent ordinairement 
 une forme alongee, semblable a celle dune digue ou d'un rempart, 
 
78 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. v. 
 
 ou bien ils forment quelquefois des monticules coniques, isoles ou 
 disposes en file. Ils ne se rencontrent jamais en forme de nappe 
 ou de plateau. Ces digues sont placees horizontalement au pied 
 et sur la pente des montagnes, ordinairement les unes derriere les 
 autres, et espacees a des distances inegales : elles sont paralleles 
 entre elles et a la direction de la vallee. Quelquefois deux ou plu- 
 sieurs de ces digues se trouvent tellement rapprochees les unes des 
 autres, qu'elles se confondent en une seule, terminee par une ou 
 plusieurs aretes. La plus grande elevation a laquelle on les trouve 
 sur la pente des montagnes qui bordent la vallee du Rhone, est 
 d'environ i.ioo a 1.200 pieds au-dessus de ce fleuve, dans les 
 environs de Bex, et de 2.400 pieds dans ceux de Sion. Le sol sur 
 lequel ils reposent n'est jamais forme d'atterrissemens ou d'eboule- 
 mens, mais c'est toujours du roc en place. 
 
 La disposition et la configuration exterieure de ces depots sont 
 inexplicables par la theorie dun transport par le moyen dim courant 
 d'eau ; car l'eau les aurait deposes en forme de nappes, surtout dans 
 les plaines des vallees et dans celles qui se trouvent au pied des 
 Alpes ; cette theorie n'explique pas non plus comment ces blocs 
 auraient pu franchir, sans les combler, les lacs qui se trouvent a 
 Textremite inferieure de la plupart de nos grandes vallees, ni la 
 singuliere position de ces enormes blocs qif on trouve isoles dans 
 la plaine ou sur la pente des montagnes, plantes verticalement sur 
 le sol, et quelquefois brises ou fendus du bas en haut dans toute 
 leur longueur, ce qui semble indiquer qu 7 ils sont tombes a peu pres 
 verticalement sur la place meme ou ils se trouvent encore, et qu'ils 
 se sont fendus ou brises par leur chute. 
 
 On remarque en outre que les blocs sortis d'une vallee laterale ne 
 se melent point ou tres imparfaitement avec ceux de la grande vallee, 
 ou avec ceux qui sont sortis d'une vallee opposee. Ainsi les pierres 
 feldspathiques ou talqueuses de la vallee d'Herens, formant des de- 
 pots considerables pres de Sion, ne se melent point avec les blocs 
 calcaires qui proviennent des vallees de la Sionne et de la Lierne, 
 qui toutes les deux prennent naissance aupres de Rawyl, et se termi- 
 nent a la grande vallee du Rhone, a peu pres vis-a-vis de la vallee 
 d'Herens. Les digues ou remparts qu'imitent les depots de blocs 
 de chacune de ces vallees sont parfaitement separes et distincts. 
 
 
1836-37-] DE CHARPENTIER'S FIRST PAPER. 79 
 
 Feu M. Escher de la Linth avait deja remarque" ce meme fait par 
 rapport aux grandes vallees de la Suisse, c'est-a-dire que les blo< s 
 erratiques de la vallee du Rhone ne se melaient point avec ceux qui 
 etaient sortis de la vallee de TAar ; que ces derniers restaient se'pare's 
 et distincts des depots de blocs venus de la vallee de la Reuss, etc. 
 En admettant un courant d'eau ou une debacle qui ait eu lieu instan- 
 tanement et a la fois clans ces diverses vallees, on ne comprend pas 
 pourquoi et comment les pierres entrainees ne se melaient pas dans 
 les endroits ou ces courans venaient se toucher et se joindre, et 
 surtout la ou ils frappaient contre le Jura, ce qui aurait du produire 
 une sorte de remou ou de refoulement, qui loin d'empecher le melange 
 des materiaux que ces courans amenaient avec eux, l'aurait au con- 
 traire singulierement favorise. 
 
 Un autre phenomene qu'on observe dans les vallees de toutes les 
 chaines de montagnes qui ont fourni des blocs erratiques, ce sont 
 les surfaces lisses que presentent les rochers qui n'ont pas etc de- 
 grades par la decomposition ou par des eboulemens. Ces surfaces 
 sont evidemment le resultat d'un frottement, et comme on sait que 
 les eaux courantes qui charrient du sable et des pierres, usent ot 
 polissent les rochers avec lesquels elles viennent en contact, on a 
 cru que les surfaces lisses et usees des rochers de nos grandes vallees 
 etaient dues a la debacle ou au grand courant qu"on supposait avoir 
 transports les blocs erratiques, qui, en quelque sorte, auraient fait 
 office de Pemeril. Pour donner plus de probability a cette explica- 
 tion, on alleguait le fait incontestable que ces surfaces polies ne se 
 rencontrent pas audessus du niveau que les blocs transported ont 
 atteint de chaque cote de la vallee, et qifau-dessus de ce niveau les 
 rochers n'offrent que des surfaces raboteuses, de veritables cassures. 
 
 La supposition dime debacle ou d'un courant n'explique pas 
 d'une maniere satisfaisante ce phenomene ; car comment concevoir 
 qu'une si immense quantite de blocs de toutes les dimensions, mise 
 en mouvement par une enorme masse d'eau, ait pu unir et rendre 
 lisses des surfaces verticales et d\me grande etendue? Loin de les 
 polir, elle n'aurait fait que les ecorner et les e'brexher. Comment 
 des blocs entraine's par l'eau auraient-ils pu frotter el user ties sur- 
 faces qui surplombent, qui forment ces sortes de voutes que nos 
 montagnards designent par le nom de barmes ou de6a///ies. Com- 
 
80 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. v. 
 
 ment expliquer, par cette supposition, la formation cle surfaces polies, 
 derriere des rochers qui font saillie, et qui, par ce fait meme, auraient 
 du les preserver du courant, et les proteger contre le choc et le 
 frottement des corps solides charries par Teau? 
 
 Mais laissons de cote ces difficultes et admettons pour un moment 
 que ces surfaces lisses avaient etc produites par un courant d 1 eau ; 
 dans ce cas elles devraient etre plus marquees vers Textremite 
 infe'rieure des vallees que dans leur partie superieure ou vers leur 
 naissance, et elles devraient etre absolument nulles sur les cotes des 
 Alpes. Eh bien, c'est precisement le contraire ; ces surfaces lisses 
 et polies se recontrent depuis le pied jusqu'au faite des Alpes, et 
 plus on s'eleve, mieux on les trouve prononcees ; elles sont ex- 
 tremement distinctes sur le Saint-Bernard, le Simplon, le Saint- 
 Gothard, le Grimsel, la Gemmi, le Sanetsch, le col d'Enzeindaz, 
 etc. . . . 
 
 Je pourrais citer encore d'autres faits plus ou moins contraires a 
 la theorie d'un courant d'eau, si ceux que je viens d'indiquer ne me 
 paraissaient pas suffire pour faire soupconner que Tagent qui a tran- 
 sporte les blocs erratiques a ete tout autre qu\me debacle ou une 
 masse d'eau en mouvement. 
 
 M. Venetz croit que des glaciers ont ete cet agent, et que ces 
 depots de blocs erratiques ne sont autre chose que des moraines. 
 
 Je sens fort bien tout ce qu'une pareille hypothese oflfre au pre- 
 mier abord d'invraisemblable, de choquant, d'extravagant meme. 
 En effet, comment admettre, comment se persuader que jadis toutes 
 nos grandes vallees fussent occupees dans toute leur longueur par 
 de vastes glaciers, qui, a. leur debouche dans la plaine au pied des 
 Alpes, se seraient etendus en forme de nappes ou d'enormes even- 
 tails pour couvrir presque toute la contree jusqu'au Jura, et remonter 
 cette chaine en nombre d'endroits jusques a son faite, et le depasser 
 meme? Comment concilier une semblable hypothese avec la masse 
 de faits qui prouvent que jadis la temperature de nos climats a ete 
 bien plus elevee qu'elle ne Test maintenant? . . . 
 
 J'avoue que toutes ces objections et beaucoup d'autres se pre- 
 senterent a moi lorsque M. Venetz. il y a environ cinq ans, me tit 
 part de son opinion. Je restai dans le doute, jusqu'a ce que les faits 
 que j'avais mis tant de soin a rechercher et a examiner pour com- 
 
1836-37-] DE CHARPENTIER'S FIRST PAPER. Si 
 
 battre cette hypothese, m'eussent conduit a. un resultat tout oppose 
 a celui auquel je mY'tais attendu. . . . 
 
 Les glaciers et leurs moraines se placant devant 1'entree de quel- 
 que petite vallc'e laterale, y forment une sorte de barre, qui, empe- 
 chant Pe'coulement des eaux, change le vallon en lac, dans lequel les 
 torrens amenent des pierres, des sables et des limons, et les deposent 
 par lits. II n'est done pas surprenant de rencontrer quelquefois 
 aupres des depots des blocs erratiques de petits amas de materiaux 
 evidemment stratifies et deposes par Peau. 
 
 Quoique la plupart des blocs charries par les glaciers soient 
 arrondis, 011 aient au moins leurs angles et leurs aretes emousses 
 ou ecornes par le frottement qu'ils eprouvent les uns contre les 
 autres, neanmoins on trouve quelquefois sur le dos des glaciers de 
 gros blocs isoles qui arrivent sans frottement, et par consequent 
 bien conserves jusqu'au pied du glacier. Ce fait explique la maniere 
 dont quelques-uns des blocs erratiques ont pu etre transported a de 
 fort grandes distances sans avoir eprouve de frottement, et sans que 
 leurs angles et leurs aretes aient ete sensiblement endommages. 
 
 La forme des moraines est celle d\me digue ou d'un rempart, 
 termine par une ou plusieurs aretes. Dans certains cas elle est 
 conique, ou bien elle presente une foule de monticules coniques. 
 Lorsqifun glacier, comme il arrive le plus souvent, a plusieurs 
 moraines, elles sont toujours paralleles entre elles, et place'es a des 
 distances inegales. La configuration interieure et exterieure des 
 moraines, et leur disposition mutuelle sont done exactement les 
 memes que celles des depots des blocs erratiques. 
 
 Les glaciers ne produisent jamais, comme les torrens et les 
 rivieres, de depots en forme de lits ou de nappes, parce qu*ils creu- 
 sent toujours le terrain jusqu'au roc vif, poussant devant eux toutcs 
 les terres, graviers et blocs qu 1 ils rencontrent sur leur passage, phe- 
 nomene connu de tous ceux qui ont observd des glaciers dans le 
 temps ou ils sont en progression, et qui s'explique tres bien par la 
 maniere dont les glaciers augmentent et avancent. Puisque les 
 glaciers en s'avangant dc'blaient le terrain jusqu'au roc vif. nous 
 pouvons facilement concevoir pourquoi nos lacs n'ont pas vie com- 
 bles par la quantite immense de blocs, de gravier et de sable qui 
 ont du les traverser, ou plus exactement, qui ont du passer par 
 
82 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. v. 
 
 dessus, et qui, s"ils avaient ete amenes par de l'eau, n'auraient pas 
 manque de les remplir. . . . 
 
 Depuis les travaux de M. de Saussure, tout le monde sait que 
 deux glaciers, lorsqu'ils viennent a s'atteindre et a se joindre sous 
 un angle aigu, ne melent et ne confondent point leurs moraines. 
 Ce fait explique parfaitement pourquoi les blocs erratiques d'une de 
 nos grandes vallees ne sont point meles avec ceux de la vallee 
 voisine, phenomene duquel on ne saurait se rendre compte par la 
 supposition que le transport de ces blocs eut ete opere par le moyen 
 de l'eau. . . . 
 
 On sait que les glaciers frottent, usent et polissent les rochers 
 avec lesqueis ils sont en contact. Cherchant a setendre, ils suivent 
 toutes les sinuosites, et se pressent et se moulent en quelque sorte 
 dans tous les creux et toutes les excavations qu'ils peuvent atteindre, 
 et en polissent les surfaces, meme celles qui surplombent, ce qu'un 
 courant d'eau charriant des pierres ne pourrait effectuer. 
 
 Comme les glaciers prennent naissance sur le faite des Alpes, 
 leur action destructive doit avoir dure beaucoup plus long-temps 
 dans les regions superieures que dans les basses vallees et a leur 
 pied. II n'est done pas etonnant de rencontrer dans les hautes 
 vallees et sur les cols des Alpes des marques de frottement beau- 
 coup plus considerables et mieux prononcees que vers leur pied, ce 
 qui devrait etre precisement l'inverse si ce frottement avait ete 
 opere par un courant ou une debacle. Enfin Tobservateur qui part 
 du faite du Jura dans la direction meme ou les blocs erratiques y 
 sont arrives, en suivant constamment leur trace, se trouve conduit 
 jusquau fond des hautes vallees des Alpes, et jusqu'aux glaciers 
 qui les dominent, ou il voit enfin ces depots devenir de veritables 
 moraines. . . . 
 
 Je termine cette notice en exprimant le vceu quelle puisse attirer 
 l"attention des naturalistes sur le travail que prepare M. Venetz ; 
 qirelle puisse les engager a etudier derechef le grand phenomene 
 des blocs erratiques. 
 
 Agassiz resolved to pass his summer vacation of 
 1836 in a healthy locality among the Alps. At that 
 
I336-37-] HJS FIRST VISIT AT BEX. 83 
 
 time resorts were few, and there were none at all in 
 the centre of the Alps. At about the time of his mar- 
 riage, in 1833, de Charpentier had invited him to visit 
 him at his beautiful home "aux Devens," near Bex. De 
 Charpentier, the classmate, at the Freiberg School of 
 Mines, of Alexander von Humboldt and Leopold von 
 Buch, the author of the best geological description of 
 the Pyrenees then existing, had a European reputation 
 which brought to his house savants from every country ; 
 in addition, he enjoyed the reputation of a charming 
 and most hospitable companion, and was the possessor 
 of rich collections of natural history. De Charpentier 
 had married, in 1828, a young German lady of noble 
 family, Miss von Gablenz of Dresden ; and as Mrs. 
 Agassiz was not particularly fond of Swiss ladies, 
 Agassiz thought that an acquaintance with Mrs. de 
 Charpentier, a German lady of culture and refinement, 
 might be agreeable to his wife. 
 
 It is a mistake to think that Agassiz was attracted to 
 Bex by a desire to study the glacial question. He was 
 adverse to the hypothesis, and did not believe in the 
 great extension of glaciers and their transportation of 
 boulders, but, on the contrary, was a partisan of Lyell's 
 theory of transport by icebergs and ice-cakes. His main 
 object was to pass an agreeable vacation with his 
 wife and child, at the foot of the Dent du Midi, and 
 near a family of savants as social and friendly as were 
 de Charpentier and wife. In all this he was not disap- 
 pointed ; but from being an adversary of the glacial 
 theory, he returned to Neuchatel an enthusiastic convert 
 to the views and observations of Venetz and de Char- 
 
84 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. v. 
 
 pentier. Agassiz found lodgings in the neighbourhood 
 of " des Devens," at "la Sallaz," a suburb of the small 
 town of Bex, and daily visited de Charpentier. The 
 site, just north of Bex, on rising ground, among fine 
 orchards and vineyards, is truly magnificent ; with lux- 
 uriant vegetation, and in full view of the opening 
 of the great valley of the Valais, and at the foot of the 
 Dent du Midi. Mrs. Agassiz, with her little boy Alex- 
 ander, was delighted with the place, and with Mr. and 
 Mrs. de Charpentier, as well as their only child, a 
 charming girl of seven years, time passed quickly, 
 and Agassiz found in more intimate acquaintance with 
 de Charpentier, another charmer of men, not like himself 
 in many points, but very similar in some. For instance, 
 de Charpentier was a delightful talker, very hospitable, 
 and, like Agassiz, enjoyed hearing the " chime at mid- 
 night." The evenings passed like dreams, in endless 
 conversations on scientific subjects. For the greater 
 comfort of the guests collected round his table, — for 
 besides Agassiz there were Dr. Lebert, Em. Thomas, 
 Venetz, Albert Mousson, Escher von der Linth, and 
 Lardy, — de Charpentier ordered the best wine of his 
 cellar, and although moderation prevailed, the conver- 
 sation was often enlivened, and hour after hour passed 
 so quickly that the company frequently did not separate 
 until a late hour ; sometimes not before daybreak. It 
 was a fruitful and genial time for all those who were 
 fortunate enough to be present. Agassiz was soon con- 
 verted into a glacialist by the arguments, and more espe- 
 cially by the evidences shown him by de Charpentier 
 and Venetz, all round Bex, and in several excursions 
 
1836-37.] CONVERSION- TO GLACIAL THEORY. 85 
 
 to the Valais. With his power of quick perception, 
 his unmatched memory, his perspicacity and acuteness, 
 his way of classifying, judging, and marshalling facts, 
 Agassiz promptly learned the whole mass of irresistible 
 arguments collected patiently during seven years by 
 de Charpentier and Venetz, and with his insatiable 
 appetite and that faculty of assimilation which he pos- 
 sessed in such a wonderful degree, he digested the 
 whole doctrine of the glaciers in a few weeks. 
 
 Agassiz saw also that de Charpentier was a true 
 " scientific epicurean ' in the best and most elevated 
 sense of the word, as he had been characterized by 
 Dr. Lebert, not only without ambition for fame, but 
 even indifferent as to the diffusion of his discoveries 
 among scientific men. Lebert calls de Charpentier 
 "une Belle au bois dormant"; and it was for Agassiz 
 to play the role of the prince in awaking him, and 
 obliging him to publish his researches ; which he finally 
 did in October, 1840, under the title of " Essai sur les 
 Glaciers." 
 
 Agassiz, with his extraordinary imagination, saw that 
 the phenomenon of the extension of old glaciers had not 
 been confined to the Rhone valley, but must have been 
 general, and formed a special period in the history of 
 the earth, during which cold prevailed all over the 
 world. In a word, Agassiz's sojourn at Bex, under the 
 teaching of de Charpentier, had taught him, with his 
 far-reaching thoughts, to add an entirely unexpected, 
 and, at that time generally very unacceptable, stage to 
 the various periods which the earth had passed through ; 
 namely, the Ice-age. 
 
86 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. v. 
 
 On his return to Neuchatel, Agassiz began to exam- 
 ine attentively, with the new tool he had obtained at 
 Bex, all the vicinity of Neuchatel and Bienne, finding 
 everywhere the most unmistakable proofs of glacial 
 action, and of the extension of the glacier of the Rhone 
 to the Chaumont, with its " Pierre a Bot," and far away 
 north towards Soleure. 
 
 During his stay at Bex, Agassiz, as a good friend, 
 wished to share the great pleasure afforded to him by 
 his stay near de Charpentier, and he kindly invited Karl 
 Schimper to visit him. As Agassiz said in 1842, in his 
 defence against the attacks of Schimper, " Through the 
 highly interesting works of Venetz and de Charpentier 
 upon glaciers, my attention was called to these phe- 
 nomena. In the autumn of 1836 I went to Bex, where 
 I spent several months, and under the guidance of M. 
 de Charpentier gradually learned to understand these 
 remarkable phenomena." These plain words cannot 
 leave any doubt as to the fact that Agassiz became 
 converted to the glacial theory by the teaching of de 
 Charpentier. Schimper, who did not leave Bex with 
 Agassiz at the beginning of November, but accepted 
 the hospitality tendered to him by de Charpentier, was 
 not with Agassiz when he made his observations on 
 the polished and scratched rocks and boulders round 
 Neuchatel. After lingering several weeks at de Charpen- 
 tier's hospitable and generous house, Schimper rejoined 
 Agassiz at Neuchatel as his guest, as he had been at Bex 
 and formerly at Munich. Of course, being constantly 
 together, Agassiz and Schimper carried on a continual 
 exchange of views on the Ice-age. During the winter 
 
1836-37-] KARL SCHIMPER. 87 
 
 of 1836-37, Agassiz gave a public lecture at Neuchatel 
 on the subject. He was continually haunted by his 
 thoughts on old glaciers ; and when the Helvetic Soci- 
 ety of Natural Sciences, of which he had been elected 
 president, met at Neuchatel on the 24th of July, 1837, he 
 wrote during the night previous his famous " Discours 
 d'ouverture." In it Agassiz most frankly acknowledges 
 that his explanation of the glacial epoch " est le resul- 
 tat de la combinaison de mes idees et de celles de 
 M. Schimper." All these explanations are necessary, 
 in order to show exactly how Schimper became involved 
 in the question, and how unjust are the accusations 
 of plagiarism launched against Agassiz by Schimper 
 himself and by Dr. Otto Vogel, in the " Allgemeine 
 Zeitung " of Augsburg. Agassiz's good heart and 
 constant readiness to give impulse to new ideas were 
 interpreted in a manner not exactly creditable. 
 
 But before we come to the delivery of his " Discours," 
 let us see how friendly he was to Schimper. As soon 
 as Schimper became a guest in Agassiz's apartment 
 at Neuchatel, Agassiz introduced him to everybody 
 and made the most of him. At the meetings of the 
 Neuchatel Society of Natural Sciences, Schimper com- 
 municated in February, March, and April, 1837, ms 
 observations on the morphology of plants, showing the 
 laws of development of leaves round the axes ; and also 
 his new ideas on the development of the animal king- 
 dom before the appearance of man. During the five 
 years which had passed since their last meeting at 
 Carlsruhe in 1832, Schimper had under-one changes 
 which were not to his advantage. He had failed to 
 
88 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. v. 
 
 draw a line sharply separating his student life from his 
 life as privatdocent and instructor at the Munich Uni- 
 versity. His appetite, on the contrary, had greatly de- 
 veloped, and was almost beyond his control. However, 
 the society of de Charpentier at Bex and of Agassiz 
 at Bex and Neuchatel was beneficial to him ; and he 
 never was so brilliant and attractive. 
 
 On the 15th of February, 1837, which was the anniver- 
 sary of his birth, Schimper was in particularly excellent 
 spirits. That evening he first made two verbal communi- 
 cations before the Natural History Society on botanic 
 morphology, promising to write them for the " Bulletin," 
 
 — a promise which, by the way, was never carried 
 into effect, like all Schimper's promises, — and then he 
 distributed to Agassiz and all the friends there a small 
 piece of poetry, half-scientific, half-humorous, in which, 
 for the first time, the word Eiszeit (glacial epoch), so 
 celebrated since, was printed. Schimper had the honour 
 to be the god-father of a great geologic period, for it 
 was certainly he who first coined and used the word. 
 Agassiz always acknowledged his priority ; and on the 
 25th of July, before the geological section of the Hel- 
 vetic Society, he read a letter from Schimper, addressed 
 to him under the title of " Ueber die Eiszeit," in which 
 the word Eiszeit is written in italics, and so printed on 
 p. 38 of the " Actes de la Societe Helvetique," Neuchatel, 
 
 1837- 
 
 But poor Schimper soon fell again into bad habits 
 
 after leaving Agassiz, and the brilliant spirit, the rare 
 
 genius, — for a man of genius Schimper certainly was, 
 
 — became more and more obscured, until he disap- 
 
1836-37-] DISCO C/KS DE NEUCHATEL. 89 
 
 peared entirely, without leaving even a good manuscript 
 account of his great discovery on the morphology of 
 plants. 
 
 The " Discours de Neuchatel ' is the starting-point 
 of all that has been written on the " Ice-age." Quoted 
 often, it is, however, very little known, because it never 
 was printed separately and also because the number of 
 copies of the small volume of the " Actes de la Societe 
 Helvetique reunie a Neuchatel ' was extremely limited. 
 As it occupies such an important place in the history of 
 the progress of geology, and also in the life of Agassiz, 
 I think it is proper to reproduce it in extenso and in 
 French, as it was delivered. 
 
 Discours prononce a V ouverture des seances de la 
 Societe Helvetique des sciences naturelles, a iVcnc/idtel, 
 le 24 Juillet, 1837, par L. Agassiz, President. 
 
 Messieurs, tres chers amis et confederes : 
 
 Depuis longtemps les membres de la section neuchateloise de 
 notre societe desiraient avec impatience voir arriver le moment ou 
 ils pourraient inviter leurs confreres de toute la Suisse a se reunir 
 chez eux. Des circonstances independantes de leur volonte, et 
 particulierement la construction du nouvel edifice dans lequel nous 
 sommes reunis et qui devait recevoir tout ce que la ville possede de 
 collections scientifiques, les ont forces a. decliner Thonneur d'acceuil- 
 lir a Neuchatel la Societe Helvetique des sciences naturelles, jus- 
 qu'a. ce qu'ils pussent le faire convenablement et mettre sous ses 
 yeux au moins une partie des collections. Encore aujourd'hui, 
 malgre toute Tactivite qu'y a mise Tinfatigable Directeur de notre 
 Musee, il n'y a qu'une faible partie des collections qui soient 
 rangees ; c'est meme a la hate qu'elles ont etc deposees dans le 
 local qui doit les recevoir et que les ouvriers n'ont pas encore quittc. 
 Nous re'clamons done toute votre indulgence pour ce que vous ver- 
 rez. Mais du moins, comptez sur le plaisir que nous avons a vous 
 
go LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. y. 
 
 recevoir ici, et soyez persuades que nous attachons un grand prix a 
 vous voir chez nous. Cest du fond du coeur que je vous dis a tous : 
 Soyez les bien-venus. 
 
 A pareil jour tout nous invite a rechercher quel est le lien qui 
 unit les sciences dont s'occupe notre Societe. Je ne crois pas me 
 tromper en affirmant qu'une grande pensee domine tous les travaux 
 qui tendent aujourd'hui a en etendre les limites. Cest l'idee d*un 
 developpement progressif dans tout ce qui existe, dime metamor- 
 phose a travers differens etats dependant les uns des autres, l'ide'e 
 d'une creation intelligible, dont notre tache est de saisir la liaison 
 dans tous ses phenomenes. 1 Ainsi voyez TAstronomie, qui s'occupe 
 maintenant de la formation des corps celestes ; la Chimie, qui etudie 
 les differens modes d'action des corps les uns sur les autres ; la 
 Physique, qui veut approfondir la nature des forces dont elle connait 
 Taction ; THistoire Naturelle, qui poursuit les phases de la vie de 
 chaque etre ; la Geologie enfin, qui se hasarde a. embrasser l'histoire 
 de la terre, a en dechiffrer merae les pages les plus anciennes, et 
 a la representer comme un grand tout, dont les revolutions ont 
 toujours tendu vers le meme but. 
 
 De tous ces progres, sans doute, il sortira un jour quelque chose 
 de grand, de vraiment humain, qui fera rentrer Petude des sciences 
 naturelles bien plus directement dans le domaine de la vie habituelle 
 de Phomme, que les avantages memes fournis a l'industrie et aux 
 arts par les resultats obtenus dans les sciences, quelques immenses 
 qu'aient ete ces derniers. 
 
 Notre Societe n'est point restee etrangere a. ce grand mouve- 
 ment ; les noms de ses membres figurent honorablement a. cote des 
 coryphees de la science qui ont daigne s'associer a nos travaux. La 
 reunion d'aujourd'hui, mieux qu'aucune autre peut-etre, prouverait 
 que mon assertion n'est point exageree. Vous le savez, Messieurs, 
 c'est notre petite societe qui a servi de modele a ces vastes associa- 
 tions dont TAllemagne, TAngleterre, et la France se glorifient a 
 
 1 If Agassiz had replaced the words "developpement progressif" and 
 "metamorphose " by evolution, what a splendid Darwinian paragraph he 
 would have given there, in 1837, twenty-two years before the publication 
 of the "Origin of Species."— J. M. 
 
1836-37-] P /SCOURS DE NEUCHATEL. 91 
 
 tant de titres ; et si lcs travaux qu'elle a enterpris out paru moins 
 brillans, a cote de ceux de 50016163 plus vastes, elle n'en a pas 
 moins donne Pelan, a plus dune reprise. 
 
 Tout recemment encore, deux de nos collegues ont souleve' par 
 leurs recherches des discussions d'une haute porte'e, et dont les 
 suites auront du retentissement. La nature de la localite ou nous 
 sommes reunis nrengage a vous entretenir de nouveau d\in sujet qui. 
 je crois, trouve sa solution dans Texamen des pentes de notre Jura. 
 Je veux parler des glaciers, des moraines, et des blocs erratiques. 
 
 Tout le monde, en Suisse, connait les glaciers et sait que leurs 
 bords sont entoures de digues de blocs arrondis qu'on appelle des 
 7noraines, et qui sont continuellement poussees en avant ou abandon- 
 nees par les glaciers a mesure qu'ils avancent ou qirils se retirent. 
 Les habitans du Jura surtout sont familiers avec un autre pheno- 
 mene qui est tres frappant dans nos montagnes, je veux parler des 
 blocs erratiques ou de ces masses de granit et d'autres roches primi- 
 tives qui sont eparses principalement sur les pentes de notre Jura. 
 Ce que tout le monde ne sait cependant pas, e'est qu'il existe encore 
 d'autres moraines que celles qui cement de nos jours les glaciers. 
 Ce sont MM. Venetz et de Charpentier, qui les ont fait connaitre 
 les premiers. On les observe principalement dans les vallees inte- 
 rieures des Alpes. Mais il est un cote de cette question qui doit etre 
 conteste, e'est la liaison que Ton a cherche a etablir entre les blocs 
 erratiques et les glaciers que cernaient les grandes moraines dont on 
 retrouve encore des traces sur les rives septentrionales du lac de 
 Geneve. C'est de ce dernier point que j'ai l'intention de vous entre- 
 tenir en particulier. 
 
 Les fails observes par MM. Venetz et de Charpentier sont cepen- 
 dant definitivement acquis a la science ; aussi importe-t-il d'en pro- 
 clamer hautement Pexactitude ; car de la depend naturellement la 
 validite de toutes les consequences que Ton peut en tirer. 1 
 
 A des distances plus ou moins considerables des glaciers actuels, 
 on remarque en efFet a differentes hauteurs des moraines parfaite- 
 ment semblables a celles qui cement encore les glaciers. Elles sont 
 
 1 It is impossible to say more clearly, or with more force, that Messrs. 
 Venetz and de Charpentier founded the glacial doctrine. J. M. 
 
9 2 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. v. 
 
 egalement concentriques et forment des digues qui suivent les ine- 
 galites des flancs des vallees. On en voit partout plusieurs etages, 
 dont les plus eleves se trouvent a quelques cents pieds au-dessus du 
 fond des vallees superieures des Alpes ou il n"y a plus de glaciers. 
 Mais en descendant dans les vallees inferieures, on en trouve succes- 
 sivement a douze ou quinze cents pieds et meme a plus de dix-huit 
 cents pieds de hauteur ; il y en a encore d'assez distinctes a. deux 
 mille pieds au-dessus du lit du Rhone, dans les environs de St. 
 Maurice en Valais. On peut les poursuivre jusque sur les rives du 
 lac de Geneve. II en existe encore de tres-elevees au-dessus de 
 Vevey et dans les environs de Lausanne, qui correspondent a. celles 
 de la rive meridionale du lac. 
 
 Si on ne les a generalement pas remarquees, c'est qu'elles sont beau- 
 coup au-dessus des routes frequentees, et que celles des parties infe- 
 rieures des vallees ont generalement ete disloque'es par les torrens. 
 
 II est toujours facile de distinguer ces anciennes moraines des 
 digues formees par le debordement des eaux et des talus plus ou 
 moins etendus, resultant des avalanches. Les digues sont tres-irre'- 
 gulieres et s'etendent a de petites distances, en s'aplanissant ; les 
 talus sont en forme de cones tres-aplatis, de'bouchant des vallees et 
 se perdant dans la plaine ; tandis que les moraines sont des digues 
 triangulares continues et parallel es le long des deux flancs des val- 
 lees, formees de blocs arrondis evidemment triture's, pour ainsi dire 
 en place, les uns contre les autres, comme cela a lieu sur le bord des 
 glaciers actuels, qui s'etendent dans de longues vallees etroites. Les 
 blocs des avalanches, au contraire, sont anguleux ; ceux des digues, 
 charries par les eaux, peuvent etre arrondis, il est vrai, lorsqu'ils pro- 
 viennent de moraines disloquees, mais alors ils s'etendent en nappes 
 irregulieres, et lorsqu 1 ils proviennent d'avalanches recentes, ils sont 
 egalement anguleux, a. moins qu*ils ne rencontrent dans leur trajet 
 d'anciennes moraines qu'ils entrainent et avec lesquelles ils se 
 confondent. 
 
 Pour se convaincre de Texactitude de ces faits, il suffit de par- 
 courir la vallee de Chamouni, en suivant les moraines les plus rap- 
 prochees des glaciers, ou de s'elever perpendiculairement sur les 
 flancs de la vallee du Rhone entre St. Maurice et Martigny, sur la 
 rive gauche du Rhone, au-dessus de la Pissevache pres du hameau 
 
I836-37-] DISCOURS DE NEUCHATEL. 93 
 
 appelee Chaux-Fleurie (Tsau-fria), ou vis-a-vis en montant au village 
 de Morcles depuis les bains de Lavey. Les de'combres des dernieres 
 debacles de la Dent du Midi, les grandes avalanches dont on voit 
 partout des traces et les nombreuses digues formees par le Rhone, 
 feront d'ailleurs apprecier justement la difference qu'il y a entre ces 
 divers accidens produits par des causes si differentes. 
 
 Les vallees laterales presentent les memes phenomcnes, comme 
 on peut le voir en remontant le cours de PAvencon, jusqu'au glacier 
 de Paneyrossaz. 
 
 En parcourant ces vallees, je n'ai pas ete moins frappe de 
 Tapparence polie que presentent les rochers sur lesquels les glaciers 
 se sont mus ; apparence que Ton remarque egalement dans toutes 
 les vallees dont les flancs sont couronnes d'anciennes moraines, a 
 quelque distance des glaciers actuels qu'elles se trouvent. Cest 
 ainsi que les flancs de la vallee du Rhone sont entierement polis 
 jusque sur les bords du lac de Geneve a. plus d'une journee des 
 glaciers, partout ou la roche est assez dure pour avoir resiste aux 
 influences atm ospheriques. 
 
 L? explication que M. de Charpentier a donnee de ces faits, evidem- 
 ment produits par de grandes masses de glaces, qui remplissaient 
 jadis le fond de toutes les vallees alpines, ne me semble cependant 
 pas embrasser toute la question, et le Jura presente line serie de 
 phenomenes qui la menent plus loin. 
 
 Pour mettre plus de liaison dans ce que j'ai a. vous dire la-dessus, 
 je vous entretiendrai d'abord des surfaces polies que Ton remarque 
 sur toute la pente meridionale du Jura et que nos montagnards 
 appellent des laves, comme nous Pa appris M. Leopold de Buch, celui 
 de tous les geologues qui le premier a le mieux etudie le Jura 
 Neuchatelois et a qui sont dus les plus grands travaux sur le sujet 
 qui nous occupe. 
 
 La pente meridionale du Jura, qui est en face des Alpes, presente 
 de ces laves jusque sur ses plus hautes sommites, depuis les bords 
 du lac de Bienne jusqu'au dela d'Orbe ; limites dans lesquelles j'ai 
 constate leur existence. 1 Ce sont des surfaces polies. completement 
 
 1 Elle s'etendent cependant bien au-dela, comme nous l'apprend une lettre 
 de M. Schimper, recue le 25 Juillet et inseree a la page 38 do res Actes. 
 
94 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. v. 
 
 independantes de la stratification des couches et de la direction 
 de la chaine du Jura ; elles s'etendent sur toute la surface du sol, 
 suivant ses ondulations, passant egalement par dessus le terrain 
 neocomien et le terrain jurassique, penetrant dans les depressions 
 qui forment de petites vallees, en s'elevant sur les cretes les plus 
 isolees et presentant un poli aussi uni que la surface d'un miroir, 
 partout ou la roche a ete mise recemment a. decouvert, c'est-a-dire, 
 debarrassee de la terre, du gravier et du sable qui la recouvrent 
 generalement. Ces surfaces sont tantot planes, tantot ondule'es, 
 souvent meme traversers de sillons plus ou moins profonds et 
 sinueux, ou de bosses longitudinales tres-arrondies, mais qui ne 
 sont jamais diriges dans le sens de la pente de la montagne ; au 
 contraire, comme les gibbosites, ces sillons sont obliques et longi- 
 tudinaux ; direction qui exclut tout idee d'un courant d'eau comme 
 cause de ces erosions. Un fait tres-curieux, que Ton ne saurait 
 non plus concilier avec Taction de l'eau, c'est que ces polis sont 
 uniformes, alors meme que la roche se compose de fragmens de 
 differente durete, et les coquilles qu'elle contient sont tranchees 
 comme dans des plaques de marbre polies artificiellement. On 
 remarque, en outre, sur les surfaces tres-bien conservees de fines 
 lignes semblables aux traits que pourrait produire une pointe de dia- 
 mant sur du verre, et qui suivent en general la direction des sillons 
 obliques. Les localites les plus interessantes ou Ton peut les 
 observer dans les environs de Neuchatel, sont le Mail, du cote du 
 lac, a la surface du terrain neocomien, et le Plan, a Pendroit ou 
 Tancienne route joint la nouvelle. Les plus remarquables sont 
 cependant a. quelque distance de la ville, par exemple, au-dessus 
 du Landeron, a. la surface du portlandien sur la lisiere des vignes 
 et de la foret, dans les environs de St. Aubin et au-dessus de Con- 
 cise. Dans quelques localites on remarque de larges excavations 
 et meme des especes de puits qui ne peuvent avoir ete produits 
 que par des cascades tombant entre les fentes de la glace. Pour 
 quiconque a examine dans les Alpes le fond des anciens glaciers, il 
 est evident que c'est la glace qui a produit ces polis, comme ceux 
 de la valine du Rhone dont il a deja ete question. II est digne 
 de remarque que ces polis ne se retrouvent nulle part dans le fond 
 des petites vallees longitudinales formees par les abruptes des dif- 
 
1836-37] DISCO URS DE NEUCHATEL. 95 
 
 ferentes ceintures des couches dont se composent nos chaines, ni 
 sur Tescarpement meme de ceux de ces abruptes qui sont tournes 
 vers la montagne, tandisque j'en ai remarque sur plusieurs 
 abruptes tournes vers les Alpes, par exemple, le long de la route 
 neuve entre St. Aubin et le chateau de Vauxmarcus. II importe 
 cgalement de signaler les differences qui existent entre ces laves et 
 d'autres surfaces polies avec lesquelles on ne saurait cependant les 
 confondre, mais qui peuvent leur ressembler dans quelques circon- 
 stances. Je veux parler des surfaces polies produites par les failles 
 011 par le glissement des couches les unes sur les autres. Les 
 premieres penetrant verticalement ou obliquement a travers plu- 
 sieurs couches, ne sont a decouvert que la ou Tun des cotes de la 
 roche en rupture s'est enfonce ; elles ne sont jamais a decouvert 
 sur de grandes surfaces corame les laves ; les secondes prcsentent 
 quelquefois des surfaces assez etendues, lorsque les couches supe- 
 rieures au glissement ont ete enlevees ; mais alors les rainures ou 
 les sillons produits par le glissement, sont dans le sens de la pente, 
 ce qui ne se voit nulle part a la surface des laves. Les surfaces 
 polies par Taction des eaux ont egalement un caractere particulier, 
 soit qu'elles aient ete produites par des eaux courantes ou par des 
 masses d'eau plus considerables contenues dans un bassin. Dans 
 le premier cas, ce sont des sillons sinueux descendant toujours, tan- 
 disque les sillons et les gibbosites des laves montent et descendent 
 suivant les accidens de la roche polie. Dans le second cas, les 
 eaux mues sur les rivages par les vents, et poussees au-dela de leur 
 niveau habituel, rentrant toujours en equilibre, forment des sillons 
 inegaux plus ou moins profonds, qui suivent generalement la ligne 
 de plus grande pente, a moins que des accidens locaux ne leur 
 donnent une direction particuliere. II en est de memo lors de la 
 hausse et de la baisse du lac au printemps et en automne. On peut 
 etudier toutes ces differences dans les environs de la ville, en compa- 
 rant les surfaces polies du Mail avec les erosions produites par le lac- 
 dans le prolongement des memes couches, ou avec les sinuositds 
 qui ont etc produites par le Seyon dans ses gorges. D'ailleurs les sur- 
 faces polies par Taction de Teau ne sont jamais aussi lisses que les 
 laves ou que les surfaces polies par les glaciers. Que Peau charrie 
 du sable et du limon ou non, les effets sont les memes, seulement 
 
96 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. v. 
 
 ils sont plus lents dans ce dernier cas. Je n'ai pas encore eu occa- 
 sion d'etudier particulierement les effets des grandes masses d 1 eau 
 charriant des glaces ; je ne pense cependant pas qu'elles produisent 
 des effets differens de ceux de Peau liquide. Ce qu'il y a de certain, 
 c'est que dans les lits de nos rivieres et sur les bords de nos lacs ces 
 effets se confondent ; et puis il est evident que la glace flottante ne 
 saurait avoir d'action sur le fond de Teau qui la porte. II n'y a done 
 que les grandes masses de glaces se mouvant immediatement sur 
 des masses solides qui puissent produire des effets semblables au 
 poli que Ton remarque sur les bords des glaciers en retraite. Ce 
 dernier phenomene est du reste parfaitement semblable a celui 
 que presentent les laves du Jura. 
 
 Par cette ressemblance seule on pourrait deja etre porte a penser 
 que des causes semblables ont produit des effets aussi semblables 
 entreux. Mais il est d'autres considerations qui nous permettent 
 de lier plus directement ces deux phenomenes, et qui forceront, meme 
 ceux qui voudraient y voir des agens diffe'rens, a. les envisager sous 
 un seul et meme point de vue. 
 
 Nous avons vu des moraines jusques sur les bords du lac de Geneve, 
 sur les deux rives a la meme hauteur ; nous avons par-la la certitude 
 qu il fut un temps ou le lac de Geneve etait gele jusqu'au fond, et 
 ou cette glace s'elevait a une hauteur tres-considerable au-dessus de 
 son niveau actuel. 
 
 Mais nous savons egalement que toutes les moraines qui restent 
 en place sont celles que les glaciers laissent sur leurs bords en se 
 retirant. Depuis Tepoque done que je viens de signaler et oil les 
 glaciers debouchaient encore dans les vallees inferieures de la Suisse, 
 ils sont alles en diminuant et en se vetirant dans des vallees de plus 
 en plus elevees. 
 
 Ici une question se presente tout naturellement. Ceux de ces glaci- 
 ers qui ont eu la plus grande extension, sont-ils descendus du sommet 
 des Alpes? ou bien y aurait-il eu un moment ou les glaces se seraient 
 formees naturellement au-dela des limites que nous venons de leur re- 
 connaitre, s'etendant peut-etre une fois jusqu'au Jura et meme au-dela ? 
 
 Le niveau des moraines des bords du lac Leman, qui sont a. 2500 
 pieds au-dessus de la mer, et la nature des surfaces polies du Jura 
 semblent Tindiquer ; il suffit meme de marquer sur une carte de 
 
1836-37-] DISCOURS DE NEUCHATEL. 97 
 
 nivellement les hauteurs des moraines debouchant dans les differentes 
 parties de la chaine des Alpes, pour se convaincre que les glaces ont 
 une fois recouvert toute la plaine de la Suisse et atteint la pente 
 du Jura. 1 
 
 En effet, la difference de niveau entre Te'levation des moraines des 
 bords du lac de Geneve aux environs de Vevey et sur la cote de 
 Savoie, et celle des surfaces polies que Ton observe au-dessus des 
 rivages du lac de Neuchatel jusque sur le sommet de Chaumont, est 
 telle que la nappe de glace qui remplissait Tespace compris dans ces 
 limites, a pu avoir une certaine inclinaison, puisque le niveau du lac 
 de Neuchatel n'est que de 1344 pieds au-dessus de la mer, celui de 
 la zone de Pierre-a-Bot, le long de laquelle on trouve le plus grand 
 nombre de blocs, de 2150 pieds ; le sommet meme de Chaumont n"a 
 que 3619 pieds, 
 
 Cela etant, nous sommes non-seulement en droit d'attribuer a 
 Taction des glaces toutes ces surfaces polies de la pente du Jura, 
 mais encore de les envisager comme un indice assure de Tetendue 
 plus considerable qu'ont eue les glaces a une epoque plus reculee, 
 tant dans le Jura que dans les Alpes. 
 
 M. de Charpentier pense que ces glaces etaint des glaciers qui se 
 sont formes sur le sommet des Alpes et qui sont descendus dans 
 la plaine pour s'elever jusqu'a la hauteur ou on en trouve des indices, 
 poussant devant eux les blocs qui sont sur le Jura. Mais un fait bien 
 frappant s'oppose a cette explication ; c'est que les blocs du Jura 
 sont generalement moins arrondis et meme plus grands que ceux 
 
 1 M. Rod. Blanchet, qui s'est aussi occupe de cette question, a fait des 
 lors la remarque que le sommet du Pelerin (montagne qui domine Vevey 
 en face de Fouverture du Valais, elevee de 3301 pieds de France au-dessus 
 de la mer), compose de poudingue a. gros grain, est poli sur sa pel 
 dans un endroit ou il n'y a pas d'eau capable de former un petit ruisseau, 
 ni de sentier, ni aucune des causes polissantes que Ton pourrait inettre 
 en avan t. 
 
 C'est done a 3300 pieds au moins que Ton peut porter le niveau des 
 glaces qui remplissaient le bassin du lac de Geneve, dont la surface 
 n'est maintenant qu'a 1145 pieds. Sur le sommet du Pelerin c'est le 
 fond de la grace dont le niveau etait de 3300 pieds au-dessus de la in 
 mais rien ne nous indique quelle etait son epaisseur dans ce point. 
 H 
 
98 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. v. 
 
 que Ton trouve dans les moraines du bord des glaciers actuels. 1 Si 
 nos blocs avaient ete roules ainsi au bord d'un glacier depuis les 
 Alpes jusqu'au Jura, ils seraient generalement plus ronds, et plus 
 petits, et il y aurait d'immenses moraines adossees au Jura, ce qui 
 nVst pas. 2 
 
 Uopinion generalement reeue attribue le transport de ces blocs a 
 d'immenses courans d'eau ou a des glaces flottantes. 
 
 Les plus grandes difficultes que presente cette maniere de voir, 
 pour n'en indiquer que quelques-unes, sont d'abord d'expliquer 
 Torigine de ces courans et de la vitesse qu*on doit leur attribuer 
 pour qu'ils aient pu transporter des masses aussi enormes, si toute- 
 fois Ton admet qu'ils ont ete charries apres le soulevement des 
 Alpes, comme tout semble Tindiquer. Car dans ce cas, ces courans 
 auraient du partir des cretes qui separent les vallees, puisque le 
 phenomene des blocs se presente dans toutes les vallees alpines et 
 sur les deux versans de la chaine, c'est-a-dire que pour suffire aux 
 exigences des faits, ils auraient du jaillir de toutes ces cretes 3 avec 
 assez d'impetuosite pour ne plus laisser tomber les blocs au-dessous 
 du niveau ou ils se trouvent dans le Jura et dans les vallees alpines 
 ou ils n'y a plus de glaciers, puis qu'on nie meme encore Texistence 
 
 1 Ces faits ne s'accordent point du tout avec ceux que M. Elie de Beau- 
 mont a decrits pour la vallee de la Durance. 
 
 2 Je ne me suis point attache a decrire la distribution des blocs erratiques 
 sur les pentes du Jura, parce qu'elle est assez connue depuis la publication 
 des recherches de MM. Leop. de Buch, Escher de la Linth, de Luc, sur ce 
 sujet. Je ferai seulement remarquer que leur accumulation sur differens 
 points ne s'accorde pas avec les theories que Ton a avancees pour expli- 
 quer leur transport. Ainsi les plus grandes accumulations que j'en con- 
 naisse se trouvent a peu de distance l'une de l'autre pres du sommet du 
 mont Auber, et dans le fond de Noiraigue, a des niveaux tres-differens, et 
 qui ne sont point sur une ligne ascendante dont le sommet serait a. Chas- 
 seron. Au contraire, c'est en general sur le bord des differens gradins du 
 Jura qu'on en voit le plus, et en particulier sur la lisiere que forme tout le 
 long du Jura Neuchatelois, la depression des couches superieures du port- 
 landien, entre le chateau de la Neuveville, Fontaine-Andre, Pierre-a-Bot, 
 Troirod, Chatillon, Fresens, Mutruz, etc. 
 
 3 Les systemes de barrage et de debacles que Ton pourrait imaginer, 
 n'expliqueraient jamais des faits communs a tant de vallees a. la fois. 
 
i83 6 "37-] DISCOURS DE NEUCHATEL. 99 
 
 des grandes moraines, pour attribuer aussi la deposition de ces 
 blocs aux memes courans. Mais comment des cours d'eau ayant 
 a peine quelques lieues de long (je parle ici des vallees latc'rales 
 debouchant dans les vallees principales) auraient-ils maintenu de 
 grands blocs a plus de mille pieds de hauteur? D'ailleurs le fait 
 que les blocs des dififerentes vallees ne sont pas les memes et qu'ils se 
 repandent en cventail a une certaine distance des Alpes, exclut cette 
 idee d'une extreme vitesse qu'on a voulu accorder aux courans, 
 uniquement pour expliquer le transport des blocs, sans penser qu'ils 
 auraient du produire en merae temps d'autres effets dont on ne 
 retrouve aucune trace. Ce fait exclut a plus forte raison Fidded'-un 
 grand courant diluvien passant sur toute la Suisse, quelque direc- 
 tion qu'on veuille lui assigner. Si c'est avant le soulevement des 
 Alpes quon suppose que le phenomene a eu lieu, je demande com- 
 ment il se fait que les lignes que ces blocs forment dans les Alpes 
 n'ont pas ete disloquees par le soulevement? car clans ce cas les 
 digues continues et paralleles de blocs que Ton voit sur les deux 
 flancs de toutes les vallees alpines et qui en suivent tous les acci- 
 dens, quelles que soient leur direction et leurs sinuosites, restent 
 inexplicables, Teau suivant un cours rectiligne dans les differentes 
 anfractuosites du lit qu'elle parcourt, tandis que la glace seule 
 agit avec la merae energie sur tous les points des bassins qu'elle 
 remplit. 
 
 Les objections que Ton peut faire contre la theorie des courans 
 sont toutes applicables jusqu'a. un certain point a la theorie de M. 
 Lyell, d'un charriage par des glaces flottantes. On peut bien faire 
 arriver par des radeaux de glaces des blocs anguleux jusque sur le 
 Jura; mais les autres particularites de ce grand phenomene ne 
 s'expliquent pas plus par la, qu'a Taide des courans, dut-on merae 
 admettre avec M. Elie de Beaumont que leur eau provenait de la 
 fonte des glaciers. 
 
 Une autre objection d'un tres -grand poids faite a cette tlu'orie 
 par M. Schimper, e'est Tetat actuel des lacs et de la grande valine 
 suisses. Si les blocs ont etc Charlie's par des courans depuis les 
 Alpes an Jura, ces courans ont naturellement passe* par dessus li- 
 lacs et les vallees longitudinales et transversales qui se trouvent 
 entre deux. Comment se fait-il alors que ces lacs et ces \alK 
 
ioo LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. v. 
 
 n'ont point ete combles? et comment expliquer les escarpemens 
 anguleux de leurs bords? 
 
 Quelque violens, quelque rapides, quelque profonds que Ton sup- 
 pose ces courans, eussent-ils meme, contre toutes les lois de la 
 physique, porte des blocs de granit d'environ 50,000 pieds cubes, 
 comme celui de Pierre-a-Bot, ils ont du se ralentir une fois, et alors 
 les dernieres trainees auraient encore du combler quelques-unes de ces 
 inegalites. Cependant on voit peu de blocs entre les Alpes et le Jura. 
 
 Si dans une autre hypothese on les fait marcher lentement sur 
 des masses de limon et de decombres assez epaisses pour les porter, 
 comment se fait-il que ces masses du moins n'ont pas comble toutes 
 les inegalites de la Suisse? Les blocs seuls se seraient-ils peut-etre 
 deposes apres etre arrive's sur le Jura, et les masses qui avaient pu 
 les apporter jusques la se seraient-elles alors ecoulees pour les laisser 
 en place? 
 
 Dautres considerations s'opposent encore a l'admission de tous 
 ces courans. 
 
 Les blocs erratiques du Jura reposent partout sur des surfaces 
 polies, a moins qu'ils n'aient ete pousses au-dela des cretes de nos 
 montagnes, et qu'ils ne soient tombes dans le fond des vallees longi- 
 tudinales, comme on le voit dans toute la vallee du Creux-du-Vent. 
 Mais ce n'est pas immediatement sur les surfaces polies qu'ils sont 
 gisant. Partout ou les cailloux roules qui accompagnent les grands 
 blocs n'ont pas ete remanies par des influences posterieures, on 
 remarque que les petits blocs, des galets de differente grandeur, 
 forment une couche de quelques pouces et quelquefois meme de 
 plusieurs pieds, sur laquelle les grands blocs anguleux reposent. 
 Ces cailloux sont de plus tres-arrondis, meme polis et entasses de 
 maniere a ce que les plus gros soient dessus les plus petits qui 
 passent souvent a un fin sable au fond, immediatement sur les 
 surfaces polies. Cet ordre de superposition, qui est constant, 
 s'oppose a toute idee d\in charriage par des courans ; car dans ce 
 dernier cas, l'ordre de superposition des cailloux arrondis serait 
 inverse. La presence dun fin sable a la surface des roches polies, 
 prouve en outre qu'aucune cause puissante n'a agi, ou qu'aucune 
 catastrophe importante n'a atteint la surface du Jura, depuis l'epoque 
 du transport de ces roches alpines, ou en d'autres termes, que les 
 
1836-37] IUSCOURS DE NEUCHATEL. ior 
 
 surfaces polies lors du transport des blocs ti'onl pas etc disloqu 
 depuis. Mais comme ccs surfaces forment en grande partie la rive 
 septentrionale des lacs de Neuchatel et de Bienne, elles prouvent, 
 pour eux du moins, que les lacs suisses existaient deja. ; et la con- 
 tinuity des moraines sur les deux rives du lac de Geneve, prouve que 
 ce bassin aussi est anterieur au transport des blocs, puisqu'il a pre- 
 cede la formation des moraines, comme on le verra bientot. 
 
 En considerant la liaison intime des differens faits qui viennent 
 d'etre decrits, il est Evident que toute explication qui ne rendra pas 
 compte en meme temps du poli de la surface du sol, de la superposi- 
 tion et de la forme arrondie des cailloux et du sable qui reposent 
 immediatement au-dessus des surfaces lisses, et de la forme angu- 
 leuse des grands blocs superficiels, est une explication inadmis- 
 sible pour les blocs erratiques du Jura ; et e'est le cas de toutes 
 les hypotheses sur le transport des blocs que je connais. 
 
 Voici quelle est l'explication de tous ces phenomenes que je crois 
 maintenant la plus plausible. Elle est le resultat de la combinaison 
 de mes idees et de celles de M. Schimper sur ce sujet. En effleurant 
 plusieurs questions generates qui s'y rattachent, pour chercher a 
 Fetablir, je n'ai point l'intention de les traiter a. fond maintenant. 
 Je veux simplement faire voir par la que le sujet qui nous occupe 
 touche aux plus grandes questions de la geologic 
 
 L'etude des fossiles porte depuis quelque temps des fruits bien 
 inattendus, surtout depuis qu'elle a pris un caractere physiologique, 
 e'est-a-dire depuis que Ton a entrevu qu 7 il existe un deVeloppement 
 progressif dans l'ensemble des etres organises qui ont vdcu sur la 
 terre, et que Ton a reconnu des epoques de renouvellement dans leur 
 ensemble. Ceux qui ont compris ce progres ne doivent pas craindre 
 maintenant d'en poursuivre les consequences jusques dans leurs 
 dernieres limites, et l'idee dime diminution uniforme et constante 
 de la temperature de la terre, telle qu'elle est aclmise, est tellement 
 contraire a. toute notion physiologique, qu'il faut la repousser haute- 
 ment pour faire place a celle d'une diminution de temperature acci- 
 dentee en rapport avec le developpement des etres organises qui 
 ont paru et disparu les uns a la suite des autres a des epoques 
 determinees, se maintenant a une moyenne particuliere pendant 
 une dpoque donnee. et diminuant a des epoques fixes. 
 
io2 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. v. 
 
 Comme lc developpcment cle la vie individuelle est toujours accom- 
 pagne de celui de la chaleur, que sa duree etablit un certain equilibre 
 plus ou moins durable, et que sa fin produit un froid glacial, je ne 
 crois done pas sortir des consequences que les faits permettent de 
 deduire. en admettant que sur la terre les choses se sont passees de 
 la meme maniere : que la terre. en se formant, a acquis une certaine 
 temperature tres-elevee, qui est allee en diminuant a travers les 
 differentes formations geologiques ; que pendant la duree de chacune 
 d'elles, la temperature n'a pas ete plus variable que celle de notre 
 globe depuis qu'il est habite par les etres qui s'y trouvent, mais que 
 e'est aux epoques de disparition, de ses habitans qu*a eu lieu la 
 chute de la temperature, et que cette chute a ete au-dessous de la 
 temperature qui signale Tepoque suivante et qui s'est relevee avec le 
 developpement des etres apparaissant nouvellement. 
 
 Si cette maniere de voir est vraie, et la facilite avec laquelle elle 
 explique tant de phenomenes inexplicables jusqu'ici me fait penser 
 qifelle Test ; si cette maniere de voir, dis-je, est vraie, il faut qu'il y 
 ait eu a Tepoque qui a precede le soulevement des Alpes et lappari- 
 tion des etres vivant maintenant, une chute de la temperature bien au- 
 dessous de ce quelle est de nos jours. Et e'est a cette chute de la 
 temperature qu'il faut attribuer la formation des immenses masses 
 de glace qui ont du recouvrir la terre partout ou Ton trouve des 
 blocs erratiques avec des roches polies comme les notres. Cest 
 sans doute aussi ce grand froid qui a enseveli les Mammouths de 
 Siberie dans les glaces, congele tous nos lacs, et entasse de la glace 
 jusqu'au niveau des faites de notre Jura qui existaient avant le 
 soulevement des Alpes. 
 
 Cette accumulation de glace au-dessus de tous les bassins hydro- 
 graphiques de la Suisse se concoit aisement quand on pense que les 
 lacs une fois geles jusqivau niveau de leurs debouches, les eaux 
 courantes ne s'ecoulant plus, et celles du ciel accrues par les vapeurs 
 des regions meridionales qui, dans des circonstances pareilles 
 devaient se precipiter abondamment vers le Nord, en ont rapide- 
 ment augmente Tetendue et rehausse le niveau jusqu'a la hauteur 
 qui a ete constatee par les faits deja enonces. L'hiver de la Siberie 
 s'etait etabli pour un temps sur une terre jadis couverte d'une riche 
 vegetation et peuplee de grands mammiferes, dont les semblables 
 
1836-37-] DISCOURS DE NEUCHATEL. 103 
 
 habitent cle 110s jours les chaudes regions de Plnde et de PAfrique. 
 La mort avait enveloppe toute la nature clans un linceul, et le fioid 
 arrive a. son plus haut degrc', donnait a cette masse de glace, au 
 maximum de tension, la plus grande durete qifelle puisse acquerir. 
 Lorsqu'on a ete frequemment temoin de la congelation d'un lac, on 
 sait combien la glace est resistante dans cet etat, et a quelle immense 
 distance des corps durs jetes a sa surface peuvent y glisser par suite 
 meme d'une faible impulsion. 
 
 L'apparition des Alpes, resultat du plus grand des cataclysmes 
 qui ont modifie le relief de notre terre, a done trouve sa surface 
 couverte de glace, au moins depuis le pole Nord, jusque vers les 
 bords de la Mediterrannee et de la mer Caspienne. Ce soulevement, 
 en rehaussant, brisant, fendillant de mille manieres les roches dont 
 se compose le massif qui forme maintenant les Alpes, a egalement 
 souleve les glaces qui le recouvraient ; et les debris detaches de 
 tant de fractures et de ruptures profondes se repandant naturelle- 
 ment sur la surface inclinee de la masse de glace appuyee contre 
 elles, ont glisse sur sa pente jusqu'aux points ou ils se sont arretes, 
 sans s'arrondir, puis qu'ils n'eprouvaient aucun frottement les uns 
 contre les autres et qu'en se heurtant ils se repoussaient facilement 
 sur une pente aussi lisse ; ou bien, apres s'etre arretes, ils ont ete 
 portes jusques sur les bords ou dans les fentes de cette grande nappe 
 de glace, par Taction particuliere et les mouvemens propres a. Teau 
 congelee, lorsqu'elle subit les efifets des changemens de temperature, 
 de la meme maniere que les blocs de rocher tombes sur des glaciers 
 sont pousses sur leurs bords, par suite des mouvemens continuels 
 qu'eprouve leur glace en se ramollissant et en se congelant alterna- 
 tivement aux diflferentes heures de la journee et dans les dilTerentes 
 saisons. Ces efifets devraient etre decrits en detail, mais comme ils 
 sont en partie cpnnus, je ne my arrete pas. 1 Je me borne a dire 
 que la puissance d'action qui en resulte pour la glace est immense ; 
 car ces masses se mouvant continuellement sur elles-memes et sur 
 le sol, broient et arrondissent tout ce qui y est mobile, et polissent 
 les surfaces solides sur lesquelles elles reposent, en meme temps 
 
 1 M. Schimper a fait un beau travail sur les efFets de la glace, auquel je 
 renverrais mes lecteurs s'il etait public. 
 
io4 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. v. 
 
 • 
 
 que leurs bords poussent devant eux tout ce qu'ils rencontrent, avec 
 une force irresistible. Cest a ces mouvemens qu'il faut attribuer la 
 superposition etrange des cailloux roules et du sable, qui reposent 
 immediatement sur les surfaces polies ; et c'est sans doute a la pres- 
 sion de ce sable sur les surfaces polies que sont dues les fines lignes 
 qui s"y trouvent gravees, et qui n'existeraient pas si le sable avait 
 etc mu par un courant d'eau : car ni nos torrens, ni Teau fortement 
 agitee de nos lacs, ne produisent rien de semblables sur les memes 
 roches. Ouant a la direction longitudinale de ces fines lignes et 
 des sillons que Ton remarque sur les surfaces polies, je ferai observer 
 qu'elle a du resulter de la plus grande facilite que devait avoir la 
 glace a. se dilater dans le sens de la grande vallee Suisse, plutot que 
 transversalement, encaissee comme elle l'etait entre le Jura et les 
 Alpes ; ce phenomene n'avant du commencer qu'avec le retrait de la 
 glace, a. une epoque oil les Alpes etaient deja debout. Je ne mets 
 pas en doute. que la plupart des phenomenes attribues a. de grands 
 courans diluviens, et en particulier ceux que M. Seefstrom a fait 
 connaitre recemment, n'aient ete produits par les glaces. 
 
 Lors du soulevement des Alpes, la surface de la terre s'est rechauffe'e 
 de nouveau, et la chaleur degagee de toutes parts a des-lors com- 
 mence a faire fondre ces masses de glaces, qui se sont successivement 
 retirees jusques dans leurs limites actuelles. Des crevasses se sont 
 formees d'abord dans les endroits ou la glace etait le plus mince, c'est- 
 a-dire sur le sommet des montagnes et des collines qui en etaient 
 recouvertes, puis le long des points les plus saillans de la plaine ; 
 des vallees d'erosion ont alors ete creusees au fond de ces crevasses, 
 dans des localites ou aucun courant d'eau ne pourrait couler sans 
 etre encaisse dans des parois congelees ; et quand la glace eut com- 
 pletement disparu, les grands blocs anguleux qui couvraient sa sur- 
 face, ou qui etaient tombes dans ses fentes, se sont trouves sur un 
 lit de petits cailloux arrondis, sous lesquels on trouve encore ordi- 
 nairement un sable plus fin. En baissant de niveau, la glace a 
 necessairement du occuper plus longtemps les depressions du sol, 
 les petites vallees longitudinales formees par les differentes ceintures 
 des couches du Jura et le fond des lacs; et c'est sans doute a ce 
 fait qu'il faut attribuer la position bizarre de tant de blocs perches a 
 peine en equilibre sur les pointes les plus eminentes des rochers, et 
 
1836-37-] DISCOURS DE NEUCHATEL. 105 
 
 leur absence constante dans les enfoncemens, 011 on n'en trouve du 
 
 moins que la ou de nouvelles dilatations momentanees de la gli 
 en retraite a pu les y precipiter. 
 
 Aussi longtemps que le niveau des glaces dans le Jura ne fut pas 
 tombe au-dessous de la ligne de Pierre-a-Bot, les blocs qui ctaient 
 encore repandus sur toute sa surface, purent continuer a etre pousses 
 contre le Jura; mais bientdt apres les glaces devenant fort minces 
 sur toute la plaine Suisse, durent en disparaltre promptement et ne 
 plus laisser que des taches dans les vallees profondes et dans les 
 bassins des lacs, e'est-a-dire. qu'elles se trouverent bientot ressern 
 dans les vallees inferieures des Alpes. 
 
 En reflechissant a ce qui a du se passer pendant cette retraite des 
 glaces, on est naturellement porte a penser que le transport des 
 cailloux roules de lavallee du Rhin et la deposition du Loss en ont 
 ete un des premiers effets, d'autant plus que ces cailloux sont les 
 memes que ceux qui se trouvent avec nos blocs, et que le Loss est 
 evidemment le resultat du detritus de la molasse. De frequentes 
 debacles ont pu alors seulement charrier aussi des blocs sur des 
 radeaux de glaces a de tres-grandes distances, ou raerae en entrainer 
 quelques-uns plus loin dans leur courant. 
 
 La fonte et la maceration des glaces et leur congelation reiteree 
 dans les jours froids, ont produit beaucoup d'autres effets geologiques 
 difficiles a. expliquer par d'autres causes. Sans rappeler les vallees 
 d'erosion, je pourrais citer ces sillons profonds qui ne sont pas des 
 fissures et qui sont domines par de grandes etendues de plaines ; ou 
 bien ces petits lacs qui se forment quelquefois sur le bord des glaciers, 
 et qui remanient les roches menues accumulees sur leurs bords, de 
 maniere a leur donner une apparence stratifiee ; ou bien les plie- 
 nomenes analogues que Ton observe sur les limites des difFe'ren 
 stations ou les grandes nappes de glace ont du s'arreter successive- 
 ment dans leurs retraites, ou bien la dispersion des os des mammi- 
 feres de Tepoque diluvienne, sans qu'ils soient ni roules. ni bris 
 etc., ou encore une foule d'autres particularites qui ne peu- 
 vent avoir d'interet que lorsqu'on a embrasse' I'ensemble de la 
 question. 
 
 Des ce moment la surface de la terre a du etre soumise de nouveau 
 aux influences du cours rdgulier des saisons; ce fut alors le premier 
 
106 LOUIS AGASSrZ. [chap. v. 
 
 printemps des animaux et des plantes qui vivent de nos jours ; les 
 glaces s'etaient retirees jusqivaux pieds des Alpes, du sommet des- 
 quelles il commencait a leur venir de nouveaux renforts. Mais 
 bientot elles subirent leurs dernieres retraites en oscillant toujours, 
 gagnant tantot en etendue et poussant des blocs devant elles, tantot 
 se retirant dans des limites de plus en plus etroites. A chaque pied de 
 terrain qu'elles abandonnaient, elles laissaient derriere elles, comme 
 les glaciers actuels en retraite, quelques-unes de ces longues digues 
 de blocs qui dominent encore les vallees alpines. Bientot les lacs 
 se degelerent aussi, les eaux prirent leur cours actuel, les vallees des 
 Alpes furent balayees, et il ne resta plus de glace des frimats passes 
 que sur les sommets de nos blanches montagnes. 
 
 Ce serait done une grave erreur de confondre les glaciers qui de- 
 scendent du sommet des Alpes, avec les phenomenes de l'epoque 
 des grandes glaces qui ont precede leur existence. 
 
 Le phenomene de la dispersion des blocs erratiques ne doit 
 done plus etre envisage que comme un des accidens qui ont 
 accompagne les vastes changemens occasionnes par la chute de 
 la temperature de notre globe avant le commencement de notre 
 epoque. 
 
 Admettre une epoque d'un froid assez intense pour recouvrir toute 
 la terre a. de tres-grandes distances des poles d'une masse de glace 
 aussi considerable que celle dont je viens de parler, est une suppo- 
 sition qui parait en contradiction directe avec les faits si connus 
 qui demontrent un refroidissement considerable de la terre depuis 
 les temps les plus recules. Rien cependant ne nous a prouve jus- 
 qu'ici que ce refroidissement ait ete continuel, et qu'il se soit opere 
 sans oscillations ; au contraire, quiconque a Thabitude dV'tudier 
 la nature sous un point de vue physiologique, sera bien plus dispose 
 a. admettre que la temperature de la terre s'est maintenue sans oscil- 
 lations considerables a. un certain degre, pendant toute la duree 
 d'une epoque geologique, comme cela a lieu pendant notre epoque, 
 puis qifelle a diminuee subitement et considerablement a la fin de 
 chaque epoque, avec la disparition des etres organises qui la carac- 
 terisent, pour se relever avec Tapparition dime nouvelle creation au 
 commencement de Tepoque suivante, bien qu'a un degre inferieur a 
 la temperature moyenne de Pepoque precedente ; en sorte que la 
 
1836-37-] D/SCOURS DE NEUCHATEL. 107 
 
 diminution dc la temperature du globe pourrait etre exprime'e par la 
 ligne suivante : 
 
 Ainsi Tepoque de grand froid qui a precede' la creation actuelle, 
 n'a ete qu'une oscillation passagere de la temperature du globe, 
 plus considerable que les refroidissemens se'culaires auxquels les 
 vallees de nos Alpes sont sujettes. Elle a accompagne la dispari- 
 tion des animaux de Tepoque diluvienne des geologues, comme les 
 Mammouths de Siberie Tattestent encore, et precede le soulevement 
 des Alpes et Tapparition des etres vivans de nos jours, comme le 
 prouvent les moraines et la presence des poissons dans nos lacs. 
 II y a done scission complete entre la creation actuelle et celles qui 
 Font precedee ; et si les especes vivantes ressemblent quelquefois 
 a s'y meprendre a celles qui sont enfouies dans les entrailles de la 
 terre, on ne saurait cependant affirmer qu'elles en descendent directe- 
 ment par voie de progeniture, ou, ce qui est la meme chose, que ce 
 sont des especes identiques. 
 
 Partant de ce qui precede, on parviendra aussi un jour a. de'terminer 
 quelle est Pepoque geologique a. laquelle le soleil a commence a exercer 
 une influence assez considerable sur la surface de la terre, pour y pro- 
 duire les differences qui existent entre ses zones, sans que ces effets 
 fussent neutralises par Taction de la chaleur interieure, a laquelle la 
 terre a du pour un temps une temperature tres-uniforme sur toute sa 
 surface. 
 
 Cette maniere de voir, je le crains, ne sera pas partagee par un 
 grande nombre de nos geologues qui ont sur ce sujet des opinions 
 arretees ; mais il en sera de cette question comme de toutes celles 
 qui viennent heurter des idees recues depuis longtemps. Quelque 
 opposition qu'on puisse lui faire, toujours est-il que les nombreux 
 faits nouveaux relatifs au transport des blocs que je viens de 
 signaler, et que Ton peut etudier si facilement dans la vallee du 
 Rh6ne et aux environs de Neuchatel, ont amene la question sur 
 un autre terrain que celui sur lequel elle a ete debattue jusqu'a 
 present. 
 
 Quand M. de Buch affirma pour la premiere fois, en face de 
 Tecole formidable de Werner, que le granit est d'origine plutonique. 
 
108 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. v. 
 
 et que les montagnes se sont elevees, que dirent les Nepturlistes ? — 
 II fut d'abord seul a soutenir sa these, et ce n*est qu*en la de'fendant 
 avec la conviction du genie qu'il l"a fait prevaloir. Heureusement 
 que dans les questions scientifiques, les majorites numeriques n'ont 
 jamais decide de prime abord aucune question. 
 
 La forme que j'ai donnee aux observations que je viens de pre- 
 senter, eloignera, je Tespere, d'ici toute discussion sur ce sujet, a. 
 moins qu'on ne reclame qu'il en soit autrement. Cependant, comme 
 je ne saurais esperer d'avoir convaincu de la verite de ces vues ceux 
 qui viennent de les entendre pour la premiere fois, je pense que la 
 section de Geologie sera la reunion la plus convenable pour discuter 
 ces questions, s'il y a lieu. La je me ferai un devoir de repondre a 
 toutes les objections que Ton voudra bien me faire, et que je solli- 
 cite meme vivement dans Tinteret de la verite. 
 
 P.S. Cette exposition a ete accompagnee de. demonstrations 
 graphiques qui ne peuvent etre reproduites ici, mais que je publierai 
 ailleurs. — They are placed at the end of the Atlas accompanying 
 "Etudes sur les glaciers,*' published three years later, as plates 15, 
 16, 17, and 18, Neuchatel, 1840. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 1 836-1 837 {continued) and 1838. 
 
 Discussion raised by Agassiz's Discourse at Neuchatel — Agas- 
 siz's Great Reputation at the Early Age of Thirty Years — 
 Death of his Father — Laurillard the Assistant of Cuvier 
 — The Establishment of Hercule Nicoi.et's Lithography at 
 Neuchatel — Dr. Vogt of Berne sends Agassiz Edward Desor 
 as A Secretary — Offer of a Chair at the Academies of 
 Geneva and Lausanne — First Visit to the Bernese Alps — 
 Two Letters to Jules Thurmann — A Visit to Chamounix — 
 The Meeting of the Geological Society of France at Porren- 
 truy — First Use of Lithochromy for the Plates of Fossil 
 Fishes — The Geologist Armand Gressly — Agassiz created a 
 "Bourgeois" of Neuchatel — Organization of an Academy at 
 Neuchatel. 
 
 The general impression, after the address was deliv- 
 ered, was astonishment mingled with much incredulity. 
 It was like a pistol shot fired into the midst of the 
 assembly. The majority were at first disagreeably 
 impressed by this disturbance of the peace. Von Buch 
 particularly was horrified, and with his hands raised 
 towards the sky, and his head bowed to the distant 
 Bernese Alps, exclaimed : — 
 
 " O Sancte de Saussiire, or a pro nobis I " 
 
 In general, almost all the practical stratigraphists 
 present were either opposed to it or indifferent. Even 
 
 109 
 
no LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vi. 
 
 de Charpentier was not gratified to see his glacial 
 question mixed up with rather uncalled-for biological 
 problems, the connection of which with the glacial age 
 was more than problematic. 
 
 The first part of the address presented in a clear way 
 all the facts first observed by Venetz and de Charpen- 
 tier, with additional observations made by Agassiz on 
 the Jura in the vicinity of Orbe, Neuchatel, and Bienne. 
 The only opinion expressed by Agassiz which was 
 opposed to de Charpentier's glacial theory, that the ice 
 covering all the country as far as the Jura did not come 
 from glaciers of the Alps, was an error on his part. 
 The second part presented by Agassiz, a combina- 
 tion of his ideas with those of Schimper, was fully 
 as erroneous as the theory of water and mud currents 
 defended by de Luc, von Buch, and Elie de Beaumont. 
 It is not surprising that de Charpentier shook his 
 head and was sorry to see his glacial theory used as a 
 vehicle for such biological dreams and fantastic expla- 
 nations of the " role " played by the upheaval of the Alps. 
 The only rational and just conception presented in the 
 second part is, that immense masses of ice covered the 
 earth wherever boulders and polished rocks exist, and 
 that the earth was covered by ice at least from the 
 north pole to the Mediterranean and Caspian seas; in a 
 word, that there was an " Ice-age," or " Eiszeit," accord- 
 ing to the name coined by Schimper. 
 
 The idea of an Ice-age was a stroke of genius due to 
 Agassiz ; 1 Schimper tried to explain it by means of 
 
 1 Many years after, when the question of an Ice-age had been recog- 
 nized as settled according to the views of Agassiz, I received a letter from 
 
1836-37-] KARL SCHIMPER. in 
 
 biological phenomena, which according to his views 
 were the causes of the fall of temperature (la chute de 
 la temperature). Schimper exhibits a curious combina- 
 tion of a dreaming philosophy and mathematical spirit 
 with a great deal of poetical inspiration, — a most 
 attractive man. From the first he made use of mathe- 
 matical drawings in his explanations of the morphology 
 and phyllotaxy of plants ; and during his stay at Neu- 
 chatel in 1837, he constructed, with the help of Agassiz, 
 a synoptical table, showing the disposition, the history, 
 and classification of the animal kingdom, which has 
 since been published under the title of " Crust of the 
 Earth as related to Zoology," as a frontispiece to 
 " Principles of Zoology," by Agassiz and Gould, Bos- 
 ton, 1848. Shortly after, during the same year, Schim- 
 per constructed a table showing the different systems 
 of upheaval, as imagined by Elie de Beaumont, by 
 means of concentric circles, with a wheel in the centre 
 showing the directions. Applying his mathematical 
 bent to the fall of the temperature clue, according 
 to him, to the complete extinction of life at the end of 
 each geological period, he drew the little figure which 
 was inserted by Agassiz in his address. 
 
 Two features characteristic of the style of this 
 celebrated discourse must occur with force to any 
 
 him, dated Cambridge, March 13, 1868, in which he said: "Ce n'etait pas 
 petite chose de se poser en adversaire de Leopold de Buch, en 1837, et 
 d'avoir conquis sur ce sujet l'assentiment de tous les geologues, a l'excep- 
 tion d'Elie de Beaumont; car l'an dernier Murchison lui-mlme m'ecrivait 
 qu'il se rendait enfin a l'evidence. Vous savez que la part de Charpentier 
 se reduit a avoir demontre la grande extension du glacier du Rhone. 1 
 moi qui ai pose la question d'une epoque glaciaire et qui l'ai fait prevaloir." 
 
ii2 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vi. 
 
 ider who is a French scholar. First, it is astonish- 
 in ■■■ to see so great a number of words italicized. In no 
 one of his papers, before or since, did Agassiz use 
 this mode of attracting attention to special points. It 
 shows how excited he was, and how desirous to impress 
 on his listeners and readers several points, considered 
 by him of paramount importance in the glacial question. 
 As a rule, Agassiz shunned such a way of securing 
 attention. lie was a good writer, and made excellent 
 use of French, which remained his favourite language 
 until the end of his life. However, it is easy to detect 
 in this address of Neuchatel a certain number of Ger- 
 manisms, due to his long residences in southern Germany. 
 
 Discussions of great earnestness followed, in which 
 all the naturalists present joined; and although Agassiz 
 displayed a rare talent for exposition, he succeeded 
 only in attracting attention to the practical part of his 
 address. With his keen eyes, he immediately perceived 
 the bad impression made by his theoretical views, and 
 if he did not drop them at once, it was only because it 
 was so hard for him to admit a mistake ; having once 
 proclaimed his views and opinions on any subject, he 
 was always most persistent in maintaining them. How- 
 ever, in this case he recalls his theory only once, at the 
 end of his volume " Etudes sur les glaciers," p. 328, 
 1840, and never mentions it again in any of his papers 
 or addresses. 
 
 Elie de Beaumont, who arrived the day after the 
 meeting was over, joined von Buch in his opposition, 
 and the two, with their Italian friend, de Collegno, were 
 much excited and painfully affected. Von Buch, who 
 
1836-37-] GREAT REPUTATION. 113 
 
 was before very favourable to Agassiz, became an oppo- 
 nent, and there is no doubt that Agassiz's very fair 
 prospect of an offer of a professorship at the Berlin 
 University was absolutely ruined from that day. 
 
 The great value of Agassiz's address lies in his more 
 graphic description of the action of glaciers on rocks, 
 than that given before by de Charpentier, in his paper 
 of 1834, and in the idea of the universality of the glacial 
 action over half a hemisphere. Besides, it drew atten- 
 tion more vividly to the question, and in a way which 
 obliged every one opposed to the view of glacial action 
 to give his reasons. 
 
 There is no other example of such a rapid rise to 
 great scientific reputation as Agassiz enjoyed in his 
 thirtieth year. At the age of twenty-one, when he 
 was still a student, -he laid the foundation by his pub- 
 lication in 1828 of Spix's Brazilian fishes; and the 
 first numbers or " livraisons ' of his " Fossil Fishes ' 
 attracted the attention of naturalists the world over. 
 Everything he published from 1828 to 1837 * s remark- 
 able, showing a rare power of description and classifica- 
 tion, and a facility in handling the most difficult problem 
 of natural history. His memoirs are entirely his own 
 work, except the illustrations; and any one who reads 
 them will see a difference between them and similar 
 work produced after 1837. His power of classifying 
 fossils and his success in reducing to order thousands oi 
 specimens of fishes, a great many of which were perfect 
 puzzles to every one, were simply marvellous; and he 
 worked at his herculean task as no man but a man of 
 genius could have done. 
 
,i 4 LOUIS AG ASSIZ. [chap. vi. 
 
 Up to that time, he had worked entirely alone. The 
 only collaboration he had ever had was in his Neu- 
 chatel address before the Swiss naturalists, when he 
 combined, as he said, his views with those of Karl 
 Schimper, on the explanation of the great ice cover- 
 ing, which, according to his view, had extended from 
 the north pole as far at least as the Mediterranean 
 S i. It was not a success, as he had occasion at once 
 to see before the meeting was adjourned ; for " Schimp- 
 erizing " — as it was familiarly called among Agassiz's 
 friends — was anything but congenial to his audience. 
 It is true that he abandoned, little by little, all the ideas 
 put forward so boldly and rashly, retaining only the 
 word "Ice-period" (Eisnetz)\ and he returned quietly to 
 the teaching he had received so liberally from de Char- 
 pentier and Venetz. But the difficulties which arose 
 from this collaboration, and which broke out soon after, 
 as we shall see, were a hint that collaboration was not 
 suited to him, and a warning to him to be on his guard 
 in future against scientific help and associates. Instead 
 of heeding the warning, Agassiz, on the contrary, from 
 that time until almost the end of his life, accepted col- 
 laboration of some sort, and entered into a succession 
 of very serious difficulties, from which he was never 
 able entirely to extricate himself, falling from one into 
 another, and suffering greatly through his own fault. 
 
 It is pleasant to say that until 1837 Agassiz had 
 really committed no fault of any consequence. At the 
 early age of thirty years he had attained the zenith of 
 his reputation, entirely by his own exertion and his un- 
 aided works. The address of 1837, on the glacial ques- 
 
iS3 6 -37-] DEATH OF HIS FATHER. 115 
 
 tion, may be considered as the climax of his scientific 
 life, as far as originality of research is concerned : it was 
 his apogee. It is not that Agassiz's publications since 
 that time are devoid of originality ; not by any means. 
 But after 1837 he always made too much use of others 
 in the work of writing and too often of observation ; and 
 it is easy to detect the lack of unity, and at the same 
 time the inequality of value in all his publications after 
 1837. To be sure, Agassiz published a great deal more 
 after 1837 than he did before, but the quantity did not 
 compensate for the quality. 
 
 His good father — a true, practical, and business man 
 — died a few weeks after the meeting of the Swiss nat- 
 uralists at Neuchatel. He much enjoyed seeing his son, 
 still so young, the president of an assembly of savants 
 collected not only from all the cantons of Switzerland, 
 but even from Berlin, Paris, Strasbourg, and Frankfort. 
 Rodolphe Benjamin Louis Agassiz was born the 3d of 
 March, 1776, and died on the 6th of September, 1837, 
 at Concise, in the parsonage of that beautiful village, 
 at the age of sixty-one years. We may say of him, 
 what we said previously of Cuvier : had he lived ten 
 years longer, it would have been to the advantage of 
 Louis, who so much needed good advice and restraint 
 in his already too great expenses. 
 
 During his stay in Paris, in 1832, Agassiz was the 
 witness of the great help afforded to Cuvier by his 
 principal assistant naturalist, M. Charles L. Laurillard. 
 In the laboratory, in his library, or in his cabinet, 
 Cuvier always found everything in perfect order, and 
 ready for the special work he was engaged in. Lau- 
 
1 16 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vi. 
 
 rillard, born at Montbeliard, like Cuvier, possessed a 
 great heart, a rare modesty, profound knowledge of 
 many questions of natural history, was devoted body 
 and soul to his great master, and was completely de- 
 void of any ambition, except to receive and always 
 deserve the approbation of Cuvier. Ever since that 
 time, Agassiz's ambition had been to get, as soon as 
 his means would allow it, his own Laurillard. He tried 
 again and again, and always failed. It is true that men 
 like Laurillard are very rare ; but Agassiz never pos- 
 sessed the art of properly managing his assistants ; an 
 art which Cuvier always had. Cuvier treated Lauril- 
 lard with dignity, never with familiarity, much less in 
 a spirit of comradery and companionship. From the 
 first day of the arrival of Laurillard in the laboratory 
 of Cuvier, he received a regular salary. He often 
 accompanied Cuvier in his journeys ; but he had the 
 great tact to remain in his subordinate position of 
 assistant, taking care to keep himself always in the 
 background. 
 
 With Agassiz it was very different ; he never knew 
 how to keep his assistants at a distance. They very 
 soon became intimate with him, or were allowed privi- 
 leges not proper to their subordinate position. In 
 addition, the question of compensation was a constant 
 difficulty, either through the lack of complete under- 
 standing, or through the small amount of the salaries. 
 In a word, Agassiz was a very bad manager of men, 
 while Cuvier, on the contrary, was a capital and rare 
 director of everything relating to scientific work and 
 scientific assistants. Years after the death of Cuvier, I 
 
1836-37-] H/S LITHOGRAPHY. 117 
 
 have heard Laurillard speak of him with the same 
 respect as if Cuvier had been in the room. With 
 Agassiz, all his assistants became so familiar and so 
 much on an equality, as to raise the question who was 
 truly the master and director. 
 
 Finding constant difficulties in regard to the execution 
 and correction of the plates for his " Poissons fossiles," 
 it was natural that Agassiz should desire to have a good 
 lithography established at Neuchatel. But such an 
 establishment in so small a town as Neuchatel then was, 
 was a very hazardous undertaking ; for it was certain 
 from the beginning that the only customer of any con- 
 sequence for a great lithography would be Agassiz, and, 
 with his small salary, although raised from $400 to 3600, 
 it was almost an act of folly to establish a lithography ; 
 more especially since he was also obliged to pay for 
 all his printing. The man chosen was a Neuchatelois 
 from La-Chaux-de-Fond, named Hercule Nicolet; a good 
 lithographer, or artist rather, but as devoid of business 
 capacities as Agassiz. The lithography was established 
 at the end of 1836, aux Sablons, above the city of 
 Neuchatel, just at the place where the railroad station 
 now stands. The establishment soon increased, about 
 twenty persons being employed there, and turned out 
 perfect work. But, from the beginning, it was evi- 
 dent that other publications with plates, besides the 
 " Poissons fossiles," the " Echinodermes," and the 
 " Poissons d'eau douce," must be undertaken to keep 
 such a large establishment in work. And Agassiz, un- 
 practical as he was, resolved to publish a German and 
 French edition of " Sowerby's Mineral Conchology of 
 
LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vi. 
 
 Great Britain," a very expensive work. The first part, 
 or " livraison ' is entitled, " Sowerby-Mineral-Conchol- 
 ogie Grossbritanniens ; deutsche Bearbeitung, heraus- 
 gegeben von H. Nicolet, durchgesehen von Dr. Agassiz," 
 and was offered by the editor to the library of the 
 I [elvetic Society of Naturalists, at the meeting of July, 
 [837, at Neuchatel. 
 
 Perceiving that he had too many irons in the fire, 
 Agassiz longed for a secretary; and, in a visit to Berne, 
 during the fall of 1837, he asked Dr. Vogt, the father of 
 Karl Vogt, if he knew any young man able to write 
 well, with some knowledge of natural history, and 
 acquainted with the French language, because his pub- 
 lications must be in that language. And he added, " If 
 you can find for me somebody of that sort, Papa Vogt, 
 I shall bless the day which has brought me here." 
 Karl Vogt, then a young university student, who was 
 present at the visit of Agassiz, and has recalled the 
 whole conversation in his biography of Edward Desor, 
 says, " Desor had gone to Hofwyl to offer his services 
 at the great educational establishment of von Fellen- 
 berg, 1 with the hope of being accepted. But after two 
 days passed there, he returned to Berne absolutely 
 crushed by his failure to obtain a position, having re- 
 ceived the discouraging answer from Herr Fellenberg 
 
 1 The Hofwyl College, placed by von Fellenberg in his chateau, was a 
 philanthropic institution created as a normal school of agriculture and a 
 model farm. There was besides a great school for secondary and superior 
 education. It was very expensive to von Fellenberg, who was obliged to 
 appoint too many professors of an inferior quality and who were poorly 
 paid, and who did not stay lung. They were recruited mainly in Germany 
 among students who had just left universities. 
 
I336-37-] ARRIVAL OF E. DESOR. 119 
 
 that all the places he was able to dispose of had been 
 already filled." The house of Dr. Vogt was a sort of 
 refuge, always open to all German political refugees, as 
 Desor was. At supper Dr. Vogt said, " What do you 
 think, Desor, of going to-morrow to Neuchatel where 
 Agassiz is now ; he wants a secretary. It seems to me 
 that it may be a good thing for you. I will give you a 
 few lines of introduction to him." At those words 
 Desor jumped with joy, and, next morning, started on 
 foot. He arrived a day later at Neuchatel, and with 
 his traveller's stick in his hand, a cap on his head, a 
 gray blouse on his back, and very few pennies in his 
 pocket, called at Agassiz's apartment and delivered the 
 letter of introduction and recommendation of Dr. Vogt. 
 He was accepted by Agassiz, but without any regular 
 pay. Agassiz gave him a room in his own apartment, 
 and paid his board at Professor Ladame's " table de 
 pension," and as to pecuniary remuneration, it was 
 simply understood that when he wanted money, if Agas- 
 siz had any, he would give him some ; if Agassiz had 
 none, he would have to wait until Agassiz's purse was 
 replenished in some way. As Karl Vogt says, "When 
 Agassiz had money, he gave what was wanted," — 
 a singularly unbusiness-like arrangement. 
 
 P. J. Edouard Desor, born February, 1811, near 
 Frankfort, was a law student at the University of 
 Heidelberg, when a revolution took place in southern 
 Germany, about 1832, in which he participated, like 
 many other students ; and he was obliged to fly to 
 France for safety, and went to Paris, where he lived 
 four years in poverty, giving a few lessons as a private 
 
120 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vi. 
 
 teacher, and helping in the translation into French, and 
 in collaboration with E. Duret, of one volume of Karl 
 Ratter's Geography on Africa, and of a small memoir 
 by A. de Klipstein and J. J. Kaup on the Dinotherium 
 
 anteum. His knowledge of natural history was 
 very limited, and consisted only of what any student 
 who followed lectures at Heidelberg and Paris would 
 pick up. He had studied law, and had received no 
 proper education to become a naturalist. He offered 
 himself at the Hofwyl Institut, near Berthoud, directed 
 by the celebrated Fellenberg, as a teacher of modern 
 languages, more especially of French, for which he 
 had fitted himself during his four years' stay in Paris. 
 Agassiz saw at once that his natural history knowledge 
 was most elementary ; but as he was able to make good 
 translations into French and German, and was intelli- 
 gent and ready to undertake anything to get his living, 
 Agassiz engaged him. 
 
 It must not be supposed that Desor was taken by 
 Agassiz as collaborator and assistant in natural history. 
 He was taken only as a secretary ; for, as we have said, 
 until then the natural sciences were almost completely 
 unknown to him. His only duties at first were to write 
 letters under Agassiz's dictation, to keep the accounts, 
 to oversee what was going on at the lithography and at 
 the printing-press. During the first two years of his 
 stay at Neuchatel, he took only the scientific title of 
 geographer. But he followed Agassiz's public lectures, 
 and quickly apprehended everything said by Agassiz, 
 learning natural history with great facility. He had a 
 ood memory, and was a hard worker, — "infatigable," 
 
 or 
 
1836-37-] EDOUARD DESOR. 121 
 
 as Vogt says. In fact, Desor entered Agassiz's house, 
 with the smallest possible amount of natural history 
 knowledge ; and in two years he became a tolerably 
 good assistant in natural history, being the best pupil 
 Agassiz' had during his stay in Europe. 
 
 It is important to remark that at the time of Desor's 
 arrival at Neuchatel as Agassiz's secretary, nine parts, 
 or " livraisons," of the eighteen composing the whole 
 work of " Les Poissons fossiles," had already been 
 issued ; that is, half of the work had been published. 
 The tenth " livraison ' was on the point of being dis- 
 tributed, and was officially issued at the beginning of 
 1838. Eight plates of echinoderms, for the " Echino- 
 dermes fossiles de la Suisse," were already printed, as 
 well as a certain number of plates of " Trigonia " and 
 "Mya." 
 
 As soon as he was established in Agassiz's house, 
 Desor was put at work on the translation into German 
 and into French of Sowerby's great work on the fossils 
 of Great Britain, and afterward at the translation into 
 German of Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise on Geol- 
 ogy, all of which were almost useless, not one ever 
 having paid the expenses of printing and lithography. 
 If Agassiz had had millions at his disposal, it would 
 have been very well ; but even then he might have 
 used the money with more profit to science. For if up 
 to this time Agassiz had experienced great difficulties 
 and stringency in money matters in keeping his two 
 draughtsmen, and publishing his "Poissons fossiles," 
 he had at least succeeded in keeping free of heavy 
 debts. His new undertakings were regarded with 
 
I- LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vi. 
 
 apprehension by all his family and his best friends. 
 But it was useless to oppose Agassiz; he would listen 
 to nothing and to no one. Science was paramount with 
 him ; everything else was of little consequence. He 
 was born to give great impetus to natural history; and 
 all his life he was absolutely devoted to it. Desor saw 
 this very quickly, and took advantage of it. Science 
 and friends working in the same field were everything. 
 
 Vgassiz et ses amis," or "Agassiz et ses compagnons 
 de voyages," became supreme. It was an unfortunate 
 day for the future of Agassiz when Desor entered his 
 service. From that time until he left Neuchatel, in 
 1846, during nine years, expenses increased, until a 
 complete collapse came as the inevitable consequence. 
 Instead of being encouraged to expend more and more, 
 Agassiz, on the contrary, ought to have been constantly 
 restrained, on account of his too great propensity to 
 throw money in all directions, even when it was not 
 absolutely necessary. It was difficult to stop him, it is 
 true ; but repeated representations, accompanied by the 
 warnings constantly poured into his ears by all the 
 members of his family, Alexander Braun included, and 
 all his best friends, might have resulted in restriction 
 instead of constant expansion. 
 
 The Academy of Lausanne, after conferring on Agas- 
 siz the title of honorary professor, offered him, in 1838, 
 a chair of active professor. Pressure was exerted by 
 some of Agassiz's kindred, all Vaudois, — for the Can- 
 ton de Vaud is the true patria (fatherland) of the Agas- 
 siz, — but in vain. He had cast in his lot with Neu- 
 
1836-38.] ACADEMY OF LAUSANNE. 123 
 
 chatel, and remained faithful to the place which first 
 gave him an official position. To reward his attach- 
 ment, the citizens of his adopted city wrote him a letter 
 of thanks, announcing at the same time that his salary 
 had been increased by 2000 francs ($400) for three 
 years. A few weeks before the offer of the Lausanne 
 Academy was made, Agassiz was approached by the 
 already celebrated physician, Auguste de la Rive, on 
 the subject of a chair at the Geneva Academy. In a 
 letter dated May, 1838, de la Rive stated frankly how 
 the matter stood ; and that he himself and everybody 
 at Geneva thought that Agassiz was the one indis- 
 pensable man. But Agassiz was already too strongly 
 bound by his lithographic establishment and printing 
 works to break his connection with Neuchatel ; at least, 
 he thought so, and declined the friendly offers of de la 
 Rive. It was doubtless a mistake ; for Geneva would 
 have given him more support and income than he was 
 able to get at Neuchatel. As de la Rive told him, "at 
 Geneva you would be a second de Saussure." 
 
 After a short journey to Paris, during July, 1838, in 
 connection with his work on the " Poissons fossiles," 
 and to examine more carefully than he had done before 
 the method of the laboratory at the Jardin des Plantes 
 for moulding fossil animals, he started for the Hassli 
 in the Oberland of Berne, studying carefully all glacial 
 marks round the village of % Guttannen, the Handeck, at 
 the Grimsel, and at the glacier of Rosenlaui. Agassiz 
 took with him five persons, making a party of six, — his 
 brother-in-law Max Braun, a mining engineer just re- 
 
124 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vi. 
 
 turned from Algeria, his draughtsman Dinkel, who had 
 
 returned from his three years' stay in England, his sec- 
 retary Desor, and two students or amateurs of glaciers 
 and high alpine region. 
 
 It was Agassiz's first excursion to the Bernese Alps, 
 and everything enchanted him; from Thun to Inter- 
 laken, Meyringen, and Helleplatte, where the granite 
 is so finely polished and striated by old glaciers that it 
 looks like polished marble. Dinkel made an exact 
 drawing of it, which was published afterward by Agas- 
 siz in the beautiful atlas accompanying his " Etudes sur 
 les glaciers." Agassiz was particularly impressed by 
 the Grimsel and its environs, and at this time made his 
 first visit to the glacier of the Aar, which afterward 
 became his great station for glacial observations. The 
 excursion lasted only ten days, and they were again at 
 Neuchatel on the 24th of August. 
 
 The following letter addressed to the great Jurassic 
 geologist, Thurmann, on the occasion of the approach- 
 ing meeting of the Geological Society of France in 
 Switzerland, is interesting ; for it was written on the 
 same day he returned from the Oberland. 
 
 Neuchatel, le 24 aodt, 1838. 
 Monsieur Jules Thurmann, 
 a Porrentruv. 
 
 Monsieur ; — J'arrive en ce moment a Neuchatel d'une tournee 
 dans les Alpes bernoises, ou j^tais alle inspecter cette partie de la 
 sdrie de nos glaciers, desirant remettre sur le tapis la question des 
 roches polies, des moraines, des blocs erratiques, etc., qui est si 
 evidente et sur laquelle la plupart de nos geologues ont si peu de 
 
1836-38.] LETTER TO THURMANN. 125 
 
 faits a leur connoissance. Tout ce que j'ai dnonce* pre'ce'demment sur 
 cette grave question se trouve confirmd sur un nouveau terrain ou 
 j'ai meme rencontre' un collaborates intelligent, avec lequel je n'ai 
 pas eu de peine a nventendre, car il avait vn (ce collaborateur etait 
 Arnold Guyot) . C'est la une condition sine qua non. Je suis bien 
 rejoui que vous avez songd a faire passer la course (de la Societe 
 Geologique) par le Landeron, la, il y a de quoi voir, tout ce qui 
 dans la question concerne le Jura ; mais malheureusement nous 
 n'avons les Alpes qu'a Phorizon et non pas sous nos pieds pour les 
 comparer. 
 
 Cependant j'apporterai quelques echantillons, qui suppleront du 
 moins, aux yeux de ceux qui n'auront pas pris d'avance le parti de 
 ne pas vouloir voir. Je suis decide a. ne parler que de faits, les 
 comprendra qui pourra. A moins qu'on ne veuille pas prendre Pen- 
 gagement de ne pas discuter sur des suppositions gratuites et nier 
 pour cela, Pexistence des faits que Ton pourrait aller constater dans 
 quelques journees. J'ai trop a. me plaindre de la maniere dont on a 
 traite des observations consciencieuses pour vouloir prendre part 
 une seconde fois a. un pareil scandal (cela se rapporte aux critiques 
 injustes et assez acerbes de von Buch et Elie de Beaumont a Neu- 
 chatel l'annee precedente). 
 
 D'ailleurs soyez persuade, Monsieur, que je me fais une fete d'aller 
 a. Porrentruy, et que je compte my trouver des le 4 (septembre) au 
 soir. Notre ami Gressly est gravement indispose, je crains bien 
 qiril ne puisse pas etre des notres (Gressly n'a pu se rendre a la 
 reunion). 
 
 J'espere beaucoup de notre visite au Landeron pour l'examen 
 de la question des anciens glaciers et des grandes nappes de glace 
 ante-alpines. 
 
 Agreez, Monsieur, Passurance de ma consideration distingue'e. 
 
 Ls. Agassiz. 
 
126 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vi. 
 
 A preceding letter to Thurmann, dated Neuchatel, 27 
 fanuary, 1836, after Agassiz's return from England, 
 contains the following judicious remarks: — 
 
 Cest peu de jours avant mon depart pour TAngleterre que j'ai 
 recu rintcrcssaut envoi de fossiles que vous m'avez adresses. Main- 
 tenant je vais m'occuper de les examiner. Ces objets sont d'autant 
 plus precieux quej'en ai vu de semblables dans les terrains juras- 
 siques d'Angleterre, et que nous avons des termes de comparaison 
 precis pour les gisements. J'ai regrette que mon absence, m'a 
 privde du plaisir d'assister a. la reunion de la Societe geologique du 
 Jura, societe qui sera d'une grande utilite pour eclaircir les questions 
 geologiques de notre pays. [The meeting of this society, founded 
 by Thurmann at Neuchatel in 1834, was at Besancon, in September, 
 1835, and it was during the session of Besancon that Thurmann pro- 
 posed to give the name Neoco?nian to the lower part of the Creta- 
 ceous rocks.] Les questions de mode de depositions des roches, 
 du role des poly piers, des equivalents geologiques, de la succession 
 des fossiles, de leur apparition et de leur disparition sur la terre, des 
 soulevements, etc., ne se presentent nulle part d\me maniere aussi 
 engageante que chez nous. Je compte assister a. votre prochaine 
 reunion [that society never met again, after the Besancon meeting 
 of 1835], et je me rejouis de penser que vous avez deja donne une 
 face nouvelle a lV'tude du Jura. 
 
 Farther on he adds : — 
 
 La clef des Alpes est dans le Jura me repete M. Voltz, et il ne 
 parait plus douteux h ce dernier que les assises calcaires superieures 
 des Alpes [then called Alpine limestone] sont la continuation imme- 
 diate de notre terrain cre'tace, et s'il en est ainsi, on pourra paralleliser 
 toutes les couches des Alpes avec les affleurements des dirTe'rens 
 soulevements jurassiques. 
 
1836-38.] VISIT TO CHAMOUNIX. 127 
 
 On the day after his return from the Oberland, he 
 again left Neuchatel en route for Chamounix, taking 
 with him, besides his first companions, several artists 
 and a young doctor, making a company of ten persons. 
 Their first halt was at Bex, the Mecca of glacialists, to 
 visit de Charpentier ; who, with his usual generous hos- 
 pitality and good nature, received the whole party and 
 showed all the glacial remains, and even the stratig- 
 raphy of the salt mines, giving most clear and impor- 
 tant explanations. From Bex Agassiz and his party 
 visited, on foot, the valley of the Rhone between Bex 
 and St. Maurice, the traces of the landslide of the Dent- 
 du-Midi, and all the places most remarkable for glacial 
 action shown to Agassiz two years previously by Venetz 
 and de Charpentier. Crossing from the Valais by Valor- 
 sine to the valley of Chamounix, they visited the " Gla- 
 cier des Bois," Montanvert, and "la mer de glace," 
 whence they returned by the Col de Balme to Bex, 
 visiting on the way the "Glacier du Trient." 
 
 As soon as they had returned to Neuchatel, after a 
 week's absence, they started again, but this time to go 
 to the meeting of the Geological Society of France, at 
 Porrentruy, the 5th of September. The meeting, pre- 
 sided over by Thurmann, was largely attended and 
 most important. The glacial question was debated in 
 the most spirited way ; for de Charpentier was there, 
 and Agassiz, excited by his presence, surpassed himself 
 in trying to convert to the new theory every one pres- 
 ent, and gave a vivid exposition of what he had just 
 seen in the Bernese Oberland and at Chamounix. This 
 
128 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vi. 
 
 time he was more successful than at the meeting of 
 Neuchatel, the year preceding. His celebrated address 
 of 1837 had excited the curiosity of many geologists; 
 and some, like Captain Leblanc of Montbeliard, had 
 gone so far as to find undeniable proofs of the existence 
 of ancient glaciers among the Vosges Mountains, proofs 
 which were presented before the society as new facts 
 to be added to those of Venetz, de Charpentier, and 
 Agassiz, observed in the Alps and the Jura. One of 
 the first converts to the glacial theory was the cele- 
 brated d'Omalius d'Halloy, who acted during the meet- 
 ing as vice-president ; and Bernard Studer, already well 
 known as the geologist best informed in regard to the 
 Bernese Alps, as well as the Molasse of Switzerland, 
 and until then a most stout opponent, was compelled 
 by Agassiz's explanations and enthusiasm to moderate 
 gradually his opposition. As he afterwards said to me, 
 Agassiz was almost irresistible in all his explanations, 
 having a ready answer to all objections. Agassiz pre- 
 sented to the society, the 6th of September, his " Obser- 
 vations sur les glaciers," in which, though attacked by 
 Studer, he was sustained by de Charpentier, Hugi, Max 
 Braun, Leblanc, Guyot, and Renoir. The paper is one 
 of Agassiz's best ; it was published first in the " Biblio- 
 theque Universelle de Geneve," Tome XX., p. 382, 
 December, 1839, mor e than a year after its delivery 
 before the French Geological Society, and again in 
 1840, in the "Bulletin Soc. Geol. France," Vol. IX., 
 p. 407. In it he quotes the observations of Max Braun 
 and A. Guyot on surfaces polished by ancient glaciers 
 
1836-38.] VISIT TO FREIBURG. 129 
 
 near the Lake of Thun and at Oberwald, in the upper 
 part of the Valais. Guyot had added some new facts 
 (considerations^) to the observations of Agassiz ; but he 
 did not write a note of what he said after Agassiz had 
 spoken. Agassiz's secretary was at the meeting ; for 
 we find in the list of persons present not belonging to 
 the society " M. Desor, geographe a Neuchatel." 
 
 In an excursion of the society from Soleure to 
 Bienne, following the foot of the Weissenstein, and at 
 la Neuveville, Agassiz showed numerous boulders and 
 rocks polished by glaciers. De Charpentier agreed 
 entirely with Agassiz, and the majority of the fellows 
 of the Geological Society accepted the new view and 
 the glacial theory as the only possible explanation of 
 the phenomena. 
 
 Directly after the meeting of the Geological Society 
 of France at Porrentruy, Agassiz left for Germany to 
 attend the meeting of the Association of German Natu- 
 ralists at Freiburg-im-Breisgau in the Grand Duchy of 
 Baden. During the sessions, which lasted from the 
 18th to the 24th of September, 1838, Agassiz had occa- 
 sion to repeat, with great force, all the arguments relat- 
 ing to glaciers, the glacial doctrine, and the existence of 
 old glaciers in the Jura, the Vosges, and the Schwarz- 
 wald. On the 25th, accompanied by Prince Charles 
 Lucien Bonaparte, and Professor and Mrs. Buckland, 
 he left Freiburg for Neuchatel. 
 
 At Neuchatel, Agassiz had his hands more than full. 
 The lithography he had established, under the direction 
 of H. Nicolet, turned out splendid plates of fossil fishes. 
 
 K 
 
I3 o LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vi. 
 
 by a new process of printing in various tints on different 
 stones ; what has since been termed chromolithography 
 or lithochromy. Nicolet had engaged at Paris a French 
 artist of great ability, Auguste Sonrel, who managed 
 admirably with large plates, and succeeded in printing 
 folio plates with a remarkable uniformity of colouring, 
 as may be seen in the atlas of the " Poissons fossiles." 
 
 The studio for moulding, under the direction of Stahl, 
 a most skilful moulder, was actively at work making 
 casts of the inside of shells and of echinoderms, and 
 also of topographical reliefs of the Jura Mountains, by 
 Gressly, to show their geological structure. 
 
 We must at this time mention an addition to the staff 
 of employes under Agassiz. There was at the meeting 
 of the Swiss naturalists at Neuchatel, in 1837, a very 
 odd kind of antediluvian or primordial man, so anti- 
 quated that he seemed as if he belonged to the Jurassic 
 period and not to our time ; very awkward, timid, ex- 
 tremely modest, and yet so learned in practical geology 
 that no part of the geology and palaeontology of the Jura 
 had escaped his researches. He knew every topograph- 
 ical feature of the Jura, every group of strata, and almost 
 every kind of fossil remains. With great embarrass- 
 ment he presented to Agassiz a letter of introduction 
 from Jules Thurmann, the great Jurassic geologist of 
 the Bernese Jura, by which Agassiz was informed that 
 the name of the young geologist before him was Armand 
 Gressly. Gressly, in the hurry of the meeting, did not 
 dare to take from one of his large pockets the manu- 
 script of his " Observations geologiques sur le Jura 
 
1836-38.] ARM AND GRESSLY. 131 
 
 Soleurois," but waited until after the session was over 
 to call at Agassiz's home and present it for publication 
 in the " Memoires de la Societe Helvetique des Sciences 
 Naturelles." After reading the first twenty pages, Agas- 
 siz promptly saw that it was a paper of the first order, 
 containing a quantity not only of new materials, but 
 also of new ideas. In it Gressly proposed the theory 
 of fades or " aspect des terrains," as he called it, an 
 expression which has been constantly used the world 
 over to explain the different association of species of 
 fossil form, according to the deposits in which they are 
 buried, or more exactly according to the character of 
 the sea-bottom on which these animals had lived and 
 associated. 
 
 Not only was the long memoir of Gressly, with a 
 quantity of coloured sections and panoramic geological 
 views, accepted by the committee of publication of the 
 Swiss Society, of which Agassiz was the president, but 
 Gressly was also closely interrogated and, as it were, 
 interviewed by Agassiz. Although Agassiz had already 
 met all the leaders of geology and palaeontology, and 
 a great number of practical collectors of fossils, he 
 had never met such a curiously original observer. 
 Gressly possessed in a rare degree precisely what 
 Agassiz wanted, — the ability to observe the stratig- 
 raphy and to classify the different groups of rocks of 
 a formation. Agassiz saw at once all the service he 
 would get from such a rare practical geologist, and 
 he offered to purchase his collection for the young 
 Neuchatel Museum, just organized, and proposed to 
 
1 32 LOUIS AG ASS I Z. [chap. vi. 
 
 him to go into the field for fossils and bring back all he 
 could collect, arranging the specimens by strata, clean- 
 ing them, and further to revise the practical geology of 
 all his publications on fossils. No regular pay was to 
 be given, for Agassiz's money was already engaged to 
 defray more than it could reasonably provide for; but 
 Agassiz promised to provide his lodging and board, to 
 pay his travelling expenses, and to give him money when 
 wanted for his personal needs, if at such times Agassiz 
 had any. In a word, it was the same unbusiness-like 
 arrangement which Agassiz used almost all his life, and 
 which was a constant source of difficulty with all his 
 assistants. With Gressly the arrangement was perfectly 
 satisfactory, and, strange to say, he was the only one 
 who never gave any trouble to Agassiz. But Gressly 
 was so easily contented, so timid, and had so few wants, 
 that he was the cheapest savant imaginable to support. 
 A few details will give an idea of the man and his 
 very limited requirements. Agassiz had to pay for his 
 lodging, which consisted of a small bedroom, poorly 
 furnished, and which soon became a true pandemonium 
 of the most sordid kind. He boarded when in Neu- 
 chatel at a third-rate inn called Le Poisson, kept by the 
 sister of the artist Jacques Burkhardt. When travelling 
 — always on foot — there was even less expense ; for 
 Gressly entered the first farm on his road, and asked for 
 food and lodging. He had already roamed all over the 
 Swiss Jura Mountains to make the observations which 
 had resulted in his excellent " Observations geologiques 
 sur le Jura Soleurois," and was well known personally 
 or by reputation by almost all the country people, who 
 
1836-38.] ARMAND GRESSLY. 133 
 
 always received him kindly, giving him a place at their 
 table and a bed to sleep in — or more exactly on; for he 
 slept with his clothes on, even with his shoes on. The 
 farmers liked Gressly extremely, because he not only 
 told good stories, but also gave good advice for finding 
 springs, digging wells, and he indicated good places 
 for marls and clays used in agriculture, and for stone 
 quarries. Like a child, as he was all his life, he played 
 with the children, making cocks and boats and dancing 
 frogs out of pieces of old almanacs or newspapers. 
 As an example of his cheap way of travelling, he 
 once started with a small sum of money in his pocket, 
 then he forgot that he had any money, and remained 
 two or even three months without spending a penny, 
 going from farm to farm, and returned loaded with 
 the most splendid and rare fossils. And when asked 
 why he had stayed so long without writing, — 
 "Why!" said he, "you forgot to give me any money, 
 and I was obliged to do as well as I could with my 
 friends the pay sans, who generously gave me board and 
 lodging as I went along; a slow process," he added, 
 "which took much of my time." " But, Gressly, I gave 
 you some money before you started, and I saw you, if 
 I remember rightly, put it in that pocket," indicating 
 the pocket. Gressly put his hand in his pocket, and 
 brought out the gold pieces which had been there, tor- 
 gotten, ever since he started two months before. 
 
 As to clothes and linen, he was even more indiffer- 
 ent; with the exception of two pairs of strong shoes, 
 a knapsack to put his specimens in, and a medium- 
 sized geological hammer, everything was of the cheapest 
 
i 3 4 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vi. 
 
 kind. He carried no change of clothing, but added 
 shirt upon shirt, whenever he received a new one ; and 
 instead of appearing the rather slender man that he 
 was, he gradually assumed the appearance of a very 
 large and bulky workman. Indeed, he was constantly 
 taken for a quarryman or a mason. 
 
 It was Gressly who collected all the materials for 
 Agassiz's Monograph of the Mya and Trigouia, and 
 also the majority of species of fossil echinoderms used 
 by Agassiz in his works on that family of sea-urchins, 
 and he also collected almost all the Jurassic and Neo- 
 comian fossil fishes. 
 
 Agassiz was not a business man, but he had found in 
 Gressly one even less able to care for money matters, 
 so they lived in perfect harmony. But sickness came 
 to Gressly, who, after rallying, ended his life prema- 
 turely, at the age of fifty-one, in an insane asylum at 
 the Waldau, near Berne. Gressly's admiration and 
 respect for Agassiz lasted as long as his mind was 
 not obscured. 
 
 It has been said that Desor wrote a large part of 
 the " Observations geologiques sur le Jura Soleurois," 
 and that Gressly was a pupil of Agassiz ; but this is 
 altogether a mistake. The manuscript of Gressly was 
 written during 1836 and 1837, m the library of Thur- 
 mann at Porrentruy. Thurmann was constantly asked 
 for help, which was always readily given, and read over 
 and corrected all the rather numerous Germanisms in 
 the French of Gressly. When Gressly started from 
 Porrentruy to go to Neuchatel, he carried with him his 
 manuscript, which was delivered into the hands of 
 
1836-38.] BOURGEOIS DE NEUCHATEL. 135 
 
 Agassiz in July, 1837, three months before Desor came 
 to Neuchatel, and before the name of Desor had been 
 heard "by either Gressly or Agassiz. To be sure, Gressly 
 did learn some palaeontology during his stay with Agas- 
 siz, and felt his influence ; but Gressly above all was a 
 practical geologist and a practical palaeontologist, who 
 learned all he knew of those two sciences, as he him- 
 self told me, from Professor Voltz of Strasbourg, and 
 more especially from Thurmann ; and he always called 
 himself the pupil of Thurmann. 
 
 In 1838, two events of interest to Agassiz happened 
 in Neuchatel : first, his unanimous election by the coun- 
 sellors of the city as " Bourgeois de Neuchatel," and 
 the second, the foundation of the Academy. We read 
 in the Manuals of the Council of Neuchatel, kept at the 
 City Hall, the following deliberation, April, 1838: "M. 
 le maitre bourgeois en chef rappelle les services consi- 
 derables que M. Jean-Rodolphe-Louis Agassiz, originaire 
 d'Orbe et de Bavois, canton de Vaud, professeur d'his- 
 toire naturelle, rend a la Bourgeoisie et au Pays en 
 general par l'application qu'il fait de ses vastes connais- 
 sances a l'enseignement public et par le lustre que sa 
 reputation universelle repand sur notre patrie et sur la 
 ville de Neuchatel en particulier, a laquelle il donne des 
 preuves du plus sincere attachement, ayant refuse des 
 offres avantageuses et reiterees de places dans les can- 
 tons voisins et dans les premieres universites de 1' Eu- 
 rope. Des merites aussi distingues ont determine MM. 
 les Quatre-Ministraux a proposer au Conseil de faire 
 attribuer a ce savant, que deja le Gouvernement a natu- 
 ralise sujet de cet Etat, la qualite de Bourgeois de Neur 
 
1 36 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vi. 
 
 cliatcl, et cela a titre gratuit. Sur quoi par deliberation 
 consultative, le Conseil a unanimement approuve la pro- 
 position, et a la meme unanimite il a confirme cette de- 
 liberation an scrutin pour etre soumise a la ratification 
 de la communaute." The title of " Bourgeois de Neu- 
 chitel" was more than merely honorary, for it carried 
 with it pecuniary benefits, and is very seldom conferred 
 gratuitously. 
 
 The king of Prussia, Frederick William, by an order 
 to his Secretary of State, dated Berlin, March 17, 1838, 
 gave for ten years ten thousand louis to develop public 
 instruction in Neuchatel, and Agassiz was confirmed as 
 professor of natural history; he did not receive his di- 
 ploma, however, until 1840, for two years passed before 
 the Academy was finally organized. Arnold Guyot was 
 invited to deliver a course of lectures on geography, a 
 year later, 1839-1840, and Dubois de Montperreux, the 
 Caucase traveller, also delivered lectures on archaeology. 
 For a small town and small canton, as Neuchatel was 
 then, the creation of an academy was a great occurrence, 
 and did honour both to the prince of Neuchatel, king 
 of Prussia, and to the City Council of Neuchatel. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 i 839- i 840. 
 
 Agassiz's Scientific Activity ; the Help rendered by his Secretary 
 Desor — An Interesting Business Letter to Pictet — Dispute with 
 Edward Charlesworth about the French and German Transla- 
 tion of Sowerby's " Mineral Conchology" — Visit to the Monte 
 Rosa and the Matterhorn — The Geologist Voltz of Strasbourg 
 — Studer's Conversion to the Glacial Doctrine — Old Glaciers 
 in the Vosges — Search on the Glacier of the Aar for Hugi's 
 old Cabin — Karl Vogt's Arrival as Assistant to Agassiz — The 
 Household and Laboratory of Agassiz at Neuchatel — The 
 " echinodermes fossiles de la suisse " — " etudes sur les gla- 
 CIERS " — The "Essai sur les Glaciers," by de Charpentier — 
 Letter of Agassiz to de Charpentier — The "Hotel des Neu- 
 chatelois" on the aar glacier — vlsit of mrs. agassiz and 
 Alexander to the Glacier — Journey to England — The Glacial 
 Theory in England — Agassiz's Discovery of Ancient Glaciers 
 in Scotland, Ireland, and England — Letter to Humboldt. 
 
 The scientific activity of Agassiz during 1839 was 
 something unique in the history of • natural history 
 researches. His secretary, Desor, had made such 
 progress under the direction and teaching of Agassiz, 
 that he began to be useful in original scientific observa- 
 tions. With a remarkable capacity and a marvellous 
 elasticity of mind, Desor, in less than two years, had 
 learned enough of all the branches of natural history 
 cultivated by Agassiz to be already helpful, not only 
 
 137 
 
i 3 S LOUIS AGASSJZ. [chap. vii. 
 
 in writing under the dictation of Agassiz, but also in 
 using his own gifts in description of species and notes 
 on the glacial question. As Vogt says: "Desor jusqu'a 
 son arrivce chez Agassiz, ignorait et etait presque com- 
 pletement Stranger a toutes les branches d'histoire 
 naturelle. Infatigable au travail, Desor etait en raeme 
 temps un compagnon aimable et devoue, ayant toujours 
 le mot pour rire et maniant avec bonhommie la plai- 
 santerie et meme l'ironie gracieuse." 1 
 
 The notes to be used in preparing the " Etudes sur 
 les glaciers ' were put in order by Desor ; in addition, 
 he corrected all the proofs of the " Poissons fossiles," 
 the " Echinodermes de la Suisse," the " Memoire sur 
 les Trigonies," and the " Observations geologiques sur 
 le Jura Soleurois," and began work on the" Catalogue 
 of all Books, Tracts, and Memoirs on Zoology and 
 Geology," the " Catalogus systematicus ectyporum 
 Echinodermatum fossilium Musei neocomensis," and 
 finally at the " Nomenclator Zoologicus." 
 
 Agassiz gave all his assistants so much to do that it 
 was impossible to keep pace with his eager desire and 
 ardour for scientific publication. When we remember 
 that it was in a small town of six thousand inhabitants 
 that such publications were all started simultaneously by 
 the invincible will of one man, and that all these great 
 undertakings required not only steady and hard work but 
 also time and money, — for Agassiz from that day pub- 
 lished everything, with very few exceptions, " aux frais de 
 l'auteur," — it is almost incredible. We have no exam- 
 
 1 " Discours a l'lnstitut National Genevois," le 23 Mai, 1882. 
 
1839-40.] LETTER TO 1TCTET. 139 
 
 pie of such impulse given to natural history anywhere, 
 even in such great scientific centres as Paris or London. 
 His generous spirit can be understood by reading the 
 following extract from a letter to his friend, Jules Pictet 
 de la Rive, dated Neuchatel, March 10, 1839: — 
 
 Je suis egalement bien rejoui de pouvoir vous montrer que 
 quoiqu'editeur force de mes publications, cfest uniquement le de-sir 
 d'etre utile qui me guide vis-a-vis de mes collegues qui ddsirent 
 acquerir mes ouvrages. Pour les Poissons fossiles, je vous les 
 cederai volontiers au tiers au-dessous du prix que les libraires y 
 mettent, c'est-a-dire a 24 francs la livraison, au lieu de 36, ce qui 
 est a peu pres le prix auquel elle me revient. Veuillez des lors me 
 faire savoir si je dois vous en adresser un exemplaire. Des que 
 j'aurai calcule exactement le cout des " Poissons d'eau douce, 11 je 
 vous ferai savoir aussi quelle remise je pourrai vous faire sur cet 
 ouvrage. II va sans dire que ce iVest qu'aux savants, qui me de- 
 mandent mes livres pour eux-memes que je peux et que je veux 
 faire le sacrifice de toutes les peines que reclament des publications 
 de ce genre. 
 
 Generosity in this case was certainly not well placed ; 
 for Pictet was a well-to-do man in a pecuniary posi- 
 tion far superior to Agassiz's, and might easily have 
 afforded to subscribe at the full price. But Agassiz 
 did not know how to discriminate between those who 
 deserved to be helped and those whose means were 
 such that a subscription to a costly work was not a 
 " sacrifice," but simply a scientific duty. 
 
 About this time occurred, for the first time, a dis- 
 agreeable difficulty which confronted Agassiz more than 
 once during his life. Without asking permission, or even 
 making his intention known, he had begun a French and 
 a German translation of the " Mineral Conchology of 
 
i 4 o LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vii. 
 
 Great Britain." The Sowerby brothers, who were the 
 authors and publishers of this costly work, thought the 
 proceeding a little too high-handed ; and the editor of 
 " The Magazine of Natural History," Edward Charles- 
 worth, published a rather sharp article in the May num- 
 ber (Vol. III., p. 254, London, 1839), in which he calls it 
 a " piracy upon the literary production of English natu- 
 ralists," and adds, " Agassiz has met with the most cordial 
 support on all sides, and in various ways, from the culti- 
 vators of science in this country ; and, although it may 
 appear harsh thus to express ourselves, we do not hesi- 
 tate openly to declare our conviction that in editing a 
 transcript in the French language of the ' Mineral Con- 
 chology of Great Britain,' its author cannot be said to 
 have really promoted the objects of science, still less to 
 have added to his own reputation." 
 
 Agassiz promptly answered, in an autograph letter 
 addressed to all his correspondents and subscribers, and 
 reproduced in French and also in English in No. 31 of 
 the " Magazine of Natural History" (Vol. III., p. 356), 
 entitled, " Lettre ecrite par M. Ls. Agassiz a M. Ed. 
 Charlesworth, en reponse a une article insere dans le No. 
 29 du 'Magazine of Natural History.'" In this Agassiz 
 says, " The assertions and insinuations of the article are 
 altogether malicious and without foundation. . . . The 
 knowledge which I possess of the most important 
 European scientific publications has assured me that a 
 French or German edition of the work, published at 
 lower price (one-fourth the cost of the original work), 
 would be rendering a real service to science, without in 
 any way proving injurious to the original edition, for 
 
1839-40.] DISPUTE WITH CHARLESWORTH. 141 
 
 which the principal demand is in England. Would it 
 then not be unfair to represent such a publication as a 
 systematic piracy ; as though translations of scientific 
 works were not being made every day with the consent 
 of the authors ? " Yes ; but unfortunately Agassiz had 
 failed to get that consent from Sowerby's sons, the col- 
 laborators and finishers of the " Mineral Conchology." 
 There lay the mistake. Agassiz adds : " I affirm that 
 the insinuation of my having entered upon this under- 
 taking with a view to pecuniary emolument, to be alto- 
 gether unfounded. ( On the contrary, only three hundred 
 copies have been struck off, and I agreed with the editor, 
 as the price of my participation in it, that the work 
 should not be sold at a sum above that necessary to 
 cover the expense of its publication." In regard to 
 his own " Poissons fossiles," he says, " I shall esteem 
 myself fortunate to see the work translated in whatever 
 shape it may appear." Charlesworth rejoined, reiter- 
 ating all his previous criticisms, and adding others ; 
 and finally, James De Carle Sowerby wrote a letter, the 
 27th July, 1839, a l so inserted in the " Magazine of 
 Natural History," Vol. III., p. 418, in which he ap- 
 proved the strictness of Charlesworth, and suggested 
 that some protection be afforded, at least by their 
 brotlicr authors, to those who make original and costly 
 publications. It seems from his letter that the " sale 
 of the 'Mineral Conchology' has only been about four 
 hundred copies, above one-fourth of which number 
 have been sent abroad. The encouragement, there- 
 fore, for carrying on the work has hitherto been not 
 very great." 
 
142 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vii. 
 
 Agassiz, from the start of his lithographic establish- 
 ment, under the direction of H. Nicolet, was very 
 anxious to procure works sufficient to keep it running all 
 the time, without too great pecuniary loss. His inten- 
 tion was good, and he began the two translations in 
 French and German with the hope of helping that 
 numerous class of observers of limited means on the 
 continent of Europe, to whom Sowerby's original Eng- 
 lish edition was inaccessible on account of its great cost. 
 I myself saw a few years after, when Agassiz's transla- 
 tions were hardly finished, how useful they were to 
 French and German geologists, and they really helped 
 the progress of science in Central Europe. The only 
 error, and it was inexcusable, was his undertaking the 
 work without having previously obtained permission 
 from the two sons of Sowerby, who wrote the principal 
 part of the text, and finally engraved also the plates, 
 after the death of their father in 1822. Pecuniarily the 
 enterprise was a great loss to Agassiz, for after a few 
 years, Nicolet failed, and Agassiz had to take the whole 
 business into his own hands. Neither of the transla- 
 tions sold well, and other more important works on the 
 palaeontology of France and Germany soon appeared 
 and blocked the way. Among these were the " Paleon- 
 tologie francaise," by Alcide d'Orbigny, and the " Petre- 
 factenkunde von Deutsland," by Quenstedt, which not 
 only attracted attention, but from the start were pay- 
 ing works, — a mark of success which was never to be 
 granted to Agassiz during his stay in Europe. After- 
 wards Agassiz very seldom referred to these two trans- 
 lations ; it was a painful subject, and he confessed that 
 
1S39-40.] EDWARD FORBES. 143 
 
 it was an error which cost him time, money, and, what 
 is of more value, reputation among some of the English 
 naturalists. However, he retained the friendship of all 
 the leaders in England, and it is refreshing to read such 
 remarks as the following: "His [Agassiz's] knowledge 
 of natural history surprises me the more I know of him, 
 and he has that love of imparting it, and that power of 
 doing it with clearness, which makes one feel one is 
 getting on, and that one has caught his enthusiasm ' 
 (Life of Charles Lyell, Vol. I., p. 457). "We are great 
 friends," Edward Forbes wrote, after the conclusion of 
 the meeting of the British Association at Glasgow, "and 
 were together all the Association week. I expect him 
 here on the 21st October; he is to work over my species 
 with me, so as to avoid useless synonyms. . . . We 
 worked over the synonyms, freely telling all he [Agas- 
 siz] knew, and confessing all he did not know. . . . He 
 also gave in to my classification of the Echinodermata, 
 admitting the Ophiuridse as a group equivalent to the 
 starfishes, and granting that the Sipunculidae are Radi- 
 ata " (Memoir of Edward Forbes, pp. 263, 264). 
 
 At the beginning of August, 1839, Agassiz went to 
 the annual meeting of the Helvetic Society of Natural 
 Sciences at Berne, where discussion on the glacial ques- 
 tion continued to attract attention. Studer, who pre- 
 sided over the society that year, proposed to Agassiz to 
 go with him to see the glaciers of Monte Rosa and the 
 Matterhorn in Valais. The party, composed of seven 
 persons, six naturalists and an artist, Bettannier, started 
 from Berne the 9th of August, 1839, passing by Kander- 
 steg to see its beautiful old moraine, already celebrated, 
 
144 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vii. 
 
 through the agency of Professor G. Bischoff of Bonn, 
 who had announced its peculiarity, and by the Gemmi 
 Pass to the bath of Loueche. Here they met the great 
 geologist, Professor Voltz of Strasbourg, and a most 
 delightful evening was passed in his company. With 
 such savants as Agassiz, Studer, Lardy of Lausanne, 
 Xicolet of La Chaux-de-Fonds, and Voltz, it is easy to 
 imagine the interest of the geological subjects which 
 they debated until almost daybreak. Studer and Lardy 
 had been at work for several years on the geology of 
 the Grand St. Bernard, and other Valaisan localities 
 of the vicinity, and Voltz, who was second only to Alex- 
 andre Brongniart, the founder of correlation of strata, 
 by means of the fossils, had worked hard at the age of 
 several groups of rather puzzling Alpine strata, more 
 especially the enigmatic " Poudingue de Valorsine," and 
 his works on the Vosges, the Alsace, and the Jura 
 Mountains laid the basis of all that has been done there 
 since. He was the teacher of such great geologists as 
 Thirria, Thurmann, and Gressly, and the creator of the 
 Palaeontological Museum at Strasbourg — at that time 
 one of the richest in Central Europe. He was, beside, a 
 most interesting talker, full of all the socialistic theories 
 of the time, Saint Simonian and Phalansterian, as well 
 as an ardent republican and a friend of all political 
 refugees, from whatever nation they came. Alas ! it 
 was for Voltz one of his last opportunities to meet the 
 geological friends who were so congenial to him, for he 
 died a few months after, 1 regretted by all who had the 
 
 1 Philippe Louis Voltz, born in Strasbourg the 1 4th August, 1784; died 
 in Paris the 15th January, 1840. 
 
1839-40.] STUDER AT ZERMATT. 145 
 
 good fortune to know him, and by none more than by 
 Agassiz. 
 
 From Loueche to Zermatt, " roches moutonnees ' 
 and polished boulders and moraines were met in abun- 
 dance, more especially near Zermatt. At that time 
 there was no hotel of any kind at Zermatt, and the 
 party found lodging and board at the house of the 
 physician of the St. Nicolas valley. Tourists had 
 not yet discovered Zermatt, and with the exception of 
 a few botanists and zoologists, no one ever came to 
 these remote parts of the Valaisan Alps. When on 
 the Riffel, Studer, who until then had opposed the 
 glacial theory and had explained every erratic phenom- 
 enon by mud currents, was at last convinced ; his 
 only remaining objection, after admitting ancient glac- 
 iers, being that he feared the consequences. See- 
 ing a vertical wall of serpentine finely polished, he 
 asked the guide to what that phenomenon was due. 
 The guide, who had not the smallest interest in the 
 glacial question, answered with great na'ivctc, that in 
 the country (le pays) everybody thought that it was 
 made by the glacier, adding: "It is true that no 
 inhabitant of the village remembers to have seen the 
 glacier in this place, but it was there formerly, for it 
 is always in this way that the glaciers wear away the 
 rocks." With great honesty Bernard Studer, who had 
 been one of the stoutest opponents of the views of 
 Venetz, de Charpentier, and Agassiz, confessed his 
 errors in a " Notice sur quelques phenomenes de 
 l'epoque diluvienne " ("Bull. Soc. Geol. France," Vol. 
 XL, p. 49. Meeting of the 2d December. 1839, Paris). 
 
1 46 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vii. 
 
 This conversion of such a prominent alpine geologist 
 induced many other Swiss geologists, who, until then, 
 had hesitated to adopt the glacial theory as proposed 
 by Venetz and de Charpentier, — a theory which was 
 extended by Agassiz to embrace almost the whole of 
 the Northern Hemisphere. It was a great gain, due 
 mainly to Agassiz ; and from that day no more serious 
 objections were made in Switzerland. 
 
 Curiously enough, directly after the reading of 
 Studer's paper, Renoir of Belfort published a most 
 important paper on the glaciers of the southern part 
 of the Vosges. In it he declared that when Captain 
 Le Blanc of the French Engineer Corps, at the meet- 
 ing of the society at Porrentruy in 1838, announced 
 the existence of old moraines in the Vosges, he dis- 
 believed him ; but started at once for the valley of St. 
 Amarin as soon as the meeting was over, and to his 
 astonishment found there proofs of all the glacial phe- 
 nomena as established by Venetz, de Charpentier, and 
 Agassiz. 1 
 
 The proofs given by Professor Renoir, as well as the 
 argument advanced by Captain Le Blanc, left no further 
 doubt as to the existence of glaciers during the Quater- 
 nary period in the Vosges, and Professor Fargeaud of 
 Strasbourg had extended his observations on ancient 
 glaciers even to the Black Forest of Baden, and to the 
 Pyrenees. So promptly did Agassiz's prophecy in 
 the address at Neuchatel in 1837 receive confirma- 
 
 1 Note sur les glaciers qui ont recouvert anciennement la partie meri- 
 dionale de la chaine des Vosges (" Bull. Soc. Geol. France," Vol. XL, p. 53, 
 Paris) . 
 
1 839-40-] HUGPS CABIN. 147 
 
 tion beyond the Alps. After leaving Zermatt, and on 
 an excursion to Mont Cervin, Agassiz and his party 
 visited the glacier of Aletsch, the greatest of all the 
 Alps, with its Merjelen (Meril) lake, unique in Switzer- 
 land ; then the glacier of the Rhone, and afterward 
 the Grimsel again. Agassiz, desirous to see the place 
 where the monk Hugi of Soleure, some years previ- 
 ously, had established a cabin on the glacier of the Aar, 
 took a guide at the Grimsel and ascended the valley of 
 the Ober-Aar. After a rather exhausting walk over 
 the glacier for three hours, the guide showed a well- 
 preserved cabin on the median moraine close by an 
 enormous granite boulder. In this they found a bottle 
 containing several papers, one of which informed them 
 that, in 1827, Hugi constructed a dry-walled cabin with 
 a floor of hay, and from a second paper, also written by 
 Hugi, they learned that he had visited his cabin again 
 the 22d of August, 1836, and found that it had 
 descended the glacier 2028 feet since it was built in 
 1827. Agassiz was much impressed by this discovery 
 of Hugi's cabin and its motion, and he then resolved 
 to return the next year and imitate Hugi in order to 
 continue his researches on glaciers. 
 
 During the excursion Joseph Bettannier, who was 
 a good landscape artist, made several very exact draw- 
 ings of the glaciers round Zermatt, Monte Rosa, Viesch. 
 Finelen, Aletsch with its lake, St. Theodule, and Aar 
 with Hugi's cabin, to be used for an atlas to accompany 
 the " Etudes sur les glaciers." 
 
 Agassiz returned to Neuchatel at the end of August. 
 Soon after, an important change was made in the house- 
 
i 4 8 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. VII. 
 
 hold involving an important addition to it. Young Karl 
 Vogt, just graduated doctor from a German university, 
 arrived on the last day of August, as had been agreed 
 two years previously in October, 1837, when Agassiz 
 was visiting his father at Berne. Karl was to help Agas- 
 siz in his publication and researches touching fossil and 
 living fishes, and new arrangements became necessary 
 to meet the increase of expenses. Never practical, and 
 becoming more and more accustomed to gather round 
 him as many assistants and social companions as he 
 could, Agassiz could find no better way to diminish his 
 expenses than to give Desor and Vogt their board at 
 his own table ; Desor already had a room in the house, 
 and another near by was taken for Vogt. In this way 
 Vogt and Desor became members of his family, their 
 board and lodging being entirely at Agassiz's expense. 
 As to salary, nothing was stipulated; but when they 
 wanted money they had to ask for it, and if Agassiz 
 had any, which was more and more rare, he gave them 
 some. At first the new arrangement worked very well. 
 Agassiz had company at his meals, which was always 
 a great pleasure to him, for he was delighted to be 
 surrounded by brilliant and intelligent, especially 
 scientific people. Agassiz's mother, who was visiting 
 him at this time while his wife was in Carlsruhe, was 
 a capital housekeeper, with much dignity of manner, 
 and accustomed to keep every one in his place with- 
 out allowing the slightest encroachment or too much 
 familiarity. 
 
 Karl Vogt in his twenties was a character seldom 
 
1839-40.] KARL VOGT. 149 
 
 met with. Tall and very corpulent for his age, his 
 movements were rather heavy and somewhat awk- 
 ward. He was inclined to see the comical side of 
 everything, and his remarks were all tinged with rid- 
 icule. As soon as he entered Neuchatel, he was saluted 
 by the nickname "Le Moutz" {Mutz in the dialect 
 of Berne), a popular character well known all over 
 Switzerland, and personifying the Bernese bear; and 
 the name clung to him during his five years' stay at 
 Neuchatel. 
 
 Vogt's "bon mots" soon became proverbial, and 
 his laughter was very infectious; so much so that he 
 would have started a Quaker meeting into uproarious 
 merriment, and obliged a community of Trappists 
 to break their vows of eternal seriousness and self- 
 control. 
 
 The reverse of the medal will appear by and by. For 
 the present Vogt made himself as amiable and accept- 
 able as possible. Desor, who was always imitating 
 some one or something, adopted the same attitude, and 
 pushed his desire to please so far, that he even accom- 
 panied Agassiz's mother to the place of worship, — 
 quite an event for a proclaimed atheist. The German 
 language was used exclusively at table and in the 
 laboratory ; and to a visitor Agassiz's establishment at 
 this time of his life seemed a German settlement trans- 
 ferred into French Switzerland. 
 
 Vogt describes his first meeting with Gressly in the 
 following manner: "During the fall (1839) Gressly 
 came. Great was my astonishment when I heard 
 
1 5 o LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vii. 
 
 Desor apostrophize the little vagabond 1 as soon as 
 he entered into the laboratory: 'But, Gressly, go out 
 directly and get washed; after that I will make you 
 acquainted with Yogt. ' Gressly with his sympathetic 
 nature, his good temper, his many eccentricities, was 
 the constant target and object of fun for both Desor 
 and Vogt. What he suffered, during the six winters he 
 passed with them, is difficult to imagine. He accepted 
 always with a smile the most cruel practical joke, work- 
 ing quietly at his manuscripts, and cleaning his fossils 
 with his tongue. As soon as the spring was begun, 
 Gressly escaped his martyrdom in the laboratory by 
 going into the field for eight or nine months. There 
 the poor tramp was at least free from the sarcasms of 
 his two persecutors. It must in justice be said that 
 years after, when both Desor and Vogt had attained 
 reputation and social position, they were kind to Gressly. 
 Vogt took him as a companion during a journey to 
 Iceland ; and Desor gave him a room in his house at 
 Neuchatel and at his country house at Combe-Varin, 
 until he was too ill to be taken care of outside of an 
 asylum. 
 
 But Gressly was too much absorbed in geology to be 
 made use of as a clerk. Desor soon found out that if 
 Gressly was ready to be treated as a funny man, he 
 had too much independence and was too learned to be 
 a " saute-ruisseau," as small clerks in French notary 
 
 1 The word is most unjust and inexact, showing that Vogt is not and 
 never was a practical geologist. Gressly was a very steady and persistent 
 observer, and all his explorations were always systematically carried on. 
 
1839-40.] CHARLES GIRARD. 151 
 
 offices or bureaus are called ; so he hired the young 
 son of a peasant, named Girard, of Concise, the for- 
 mer parish of Agassiz's father, to be his Jack at all 
 trades. Intelligent and desirous to become a naturalist, 
 Charles Girard submitted to the continual and rather 
 severe exactions of Desor ; for he not only had to write 
 under Desor's dictation, but he was constantly running 
 between the laboratory, Agassiz's lodging, the lecture- 
 room, the lithographic establishment, and the printing- 
 press; besides, he was the bootblack for the whole 
 establishment. Desor kept him very close, and pun- 
 ished him remorselessly by sharp reprimands, which 
 were always accepted without a word of retort, for 
 Desor was the head man, and not an easy one to 
 please. 
 
 As Vogt says, during the last six years of Agassiz's 
 life at Neuchatel, it was a kind of scientific factory, 
 producing more than was wanted, and glutting the 
 market with publications, without profit to anybody. 
 Indeed, several of the works issued might have been 
 dispensed with, both as regards cleverness and timeli- 
 ness, to say nothing of the pecuniary expense, which 
 was always rather great, notwithstanding the cheapness 
 of living in Neuchatel. 
 
 However open to just criticism several of Agassiz's 
 undertakings may be, they furnished an example of mar- 
 vellous initiative and of extraordinary impulse. Every 
 one under Agassiz's direction worked hard and well ; 
 there was a sort of rivalry as to who would do best and 
 most. The first part of the "Description des Echino- 
 
i 5 2 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vii. 
 
 dermes fossiles de la Suisse," containing spatangoids and 
 clypeastroids, appeared during the autumn of 1839, in 
 the " Nouveaux Memoires de la Societe Helvetique." 
 Until then no publication on echinoderms of such impor- 
 tance in regard to classification, correctness of localities, 
 and stratigraphical position, had appeared. Gressly had 
 had a great share in it, having found the majority of the 
 specimens used, and having helped Agassiz in his descrip- 
 tions and other details of each species. A special artist, 
 Dickmann, was trained by Agassiz to draw Echinidae, and 
 the accompanying plates are excellent. The memoir was 
 made use of at once, with great advantage, by all geolo- 
 gists studying the Jurassic and Neocomian series ; and 
 seldom has such an important and timely contribution 
 to palaeontology been made. The second part, " Cida- 
 rides," soon followed, in June, 1840; and the whole 
 work is one of Agassiz's best, being remarkably clear, 
 with excellent classification, good genera and species ; 
 all of which have been accepted and used since, in all 
 the works on fossil echinoderms. 
 
 At the beginning of the winter Agassiz wrote a very 
 interesting letter on the glaciers to Elie de Beaumont, 
 asking him to communicate it to the Academy of Science. 
 But de Beaumont was a rather unfair opponent in 
 everything relating to the glacial question, and he did 
 not read the letter to the Academy, as he was requested 
 to do. As it is important, and allows every one to see 
 the opposition at that time constantly made against the 
 doctrine of the action of glaciers in the Alps, I give it 
 almost in full, suppressing only local details relating to 
 
1839-40] LETTER TO DE BEAUMONT. 153 
 
 the glaciers around Zermatt and Mont Cervin. Besides, 
 this letter had the advantage of giving, before the publi- 
 cation of " Etudes sur les glaciers," advertised to appear 
 the following year, explanations of some of the plates 
 prepared for the folio atlas to accompany that work. 
 
 NeuchAtel, 16 decembre, 1839. 
 Louis Agassiz 
 a Elie de Beaumont. 
 
 Je venais d'emballer les premieres dpreuves de mes planches de 
 glaciers pour vous les envoyer lorsque je recus votre lettre a laquelle 
 je rrfempresse de repondre. J'espere pouvoir vous adresser d'ici au 
 printemps le cahier complet des planches que je fais faire sur les 
 phenomenes que presentent les glaciers ; celles que je vous adresse 
 aujourd'hui ne sont relatives qu'a. la formation et a. la marche des 
 moraines et a Taction des glaciers sur le fond sur lequel ils reposent. 
 Tout ce qui concerne la structure intime des glaciers et la plus grande 
 extension qu'ils avaient autrefois ainsi que les moraines anciennes 
 sera figure plus tard. JHai voulu rester d'abord dans des limites ou je 
 suis sure de ne rencontrer aucune opposition. Ce sera je Tespere le 
 meilleur moyen de preparer un acceuil favorable aux phenomenes 
 trop contested dont j'ai deja parle ailleurs. Je crois que je parvien- 
 drai a. les faire adopter lorsque je serai parvenu a demontrer avec 
 le raeme respect qui vous anime pour les lois generates concernant 
 notre globe, que des oscillations de temperature un peu plus grandes 
 ou un peu plus faibles ne sortent pas plus du cadre des lois invariables 
 de la physique que des phenomenes de soulevement poussant un 
 ilot a fleur d'eau, ou soulevant la chaine des Alpes. D'ailleurs 
 Tetude comparative que j'ai faite d'une part de reffet de l'eau cou- 
 rante, ou de grandes masses d'eau mues par les vents, d'autre part 
 des efFets produits par le mouvement des glaciers, me permet main- 
 tenant de les distinguer a quelque distance de leur source premiere 
 que je les rencontre. 
 
 Mais revenons aux glaciers tels qu'ils se presentent dans leur 
 
r 54 LOUIS AGASSrz. [chap. vii. 
 
 limites actuelles. Les Planches i et 2 (de l 1 Atlas de 32 planches des 
 Etudes sur les Glaciers, qui a paru en 1840), que Ton peut joindre, 
 offrent un panorama des principals sommites du Mont-Rose vues 
 depuis le RifTelhorn. . . . Je ferai d'abord remarquer que sur la 
 droite de la Planche No. 1. on voit distinctement une grande moraine 
 formde autour du rocher saillant qui borde le glacier du Mont-Rose, 
 et qui est refoule'e sur le glacier principal par les glaces descendant 
 du Lyskamm, c'est la moraine que j'appelle la grande moraine du 
 .Mont-Rose pour la distinguer d'une autre moraine moins consi- 
 derable qui se forme par les eboulements, de quelques aretes nues du 
 Mont-Rose et qui descend a. peu pres sur le milieu du grand massif 
 de glace qui separe le Mont-Rose du Gornerhorn et qui apres s'etre 
 repliee sur le milieu du grand glacier marche parallelement avec la 
 premiere. De Tangle inferieure du Gornerhorn, on voit surgir une 
 troisieme moraine separee de la petite moraine du Mont-Rose par 
 une serie d'entonnoirs d'abord peu distincts, mais qui grandissent 
 en face du Lyskamm et du Breithorn, pour disparaitre entierement 
 plus bas. Je lui ai donne le nom de moraine du Gornerhorn. 
 Enfin sur le devant de la planche on remarque une quatrieme 
 moraine qui descend du milieu de la Porte-Blanche et qui tend a. se 
 confondre avec la moraine du Gornerhorn (La Porte-Blanche est 
 Tarrete qui domine la vallee de Macugnaga au nord du Gorner- 
 horn). Lorsqu'on descend au pied du Riffel on remarque une 
 cinquieme grande moraine au bord du glacier, mais elle reste in- 
 apercue sur cette planche a cause de la saillie que forment les 
 rochers d'011 le panorama est dessine. . . . 
 
 La planche 3 repre'sente le glacier de Zermatt au point 011 apres 
 avoir recu les affluents de tous les pics il commence a. descendre 
 dans la vallee en s'engageant entre le RifTelhorn et les rochers ap- 
 pelds Auf-Platten. ... La planche 4 est la continuation de la 
 planche 3 ; le glacier est deja. considerablement descendu entre le 
 RifTelhorn et Auf-Platten. Cette vue est prise vis-a-vis du RifTel- 
 horn au bord d'une cascade qui descend du glacier de Furke en 
 montant a Auf-Platten, tandisque les trois autres planches sont 
 dessine'es depuis le RifTelhorn. ... En general a Pextrdmite du 
 
1839-40.] LETTER TO DE BEAUMONT. 155 
 
 glacier les moraines se dispersent tellement qu'il est fort difficile de 
 les distinguer les unes des autres. On ne les reconnoit guere qu'a la 
 nature de leurs roches. La marche de toutes ces moraines com- 
 pletement distinctes dans la partie superieure du glacier, plus ou 
 moins confondues dans sa partie inferieure prouve que les affluents 
 de glace qui descendent des pics superieures comme autant de massif 
 distincts se reunissent plus bas en un massif homogene semblable a 
 un grand fleuve qui vers son embouchure roule d'une maniere uni- 
 forme des riots longtemps distincts, mais enfin confondus dans leur 
 marche. . . . 
 
 Les planches 6 et 7 doivent donner une idde de Taction qu'exer- 
 cent les glaciers sur le fond sur lequel ils se meuvent. . . . En 
 penetrant sous le glacier, entre ses crevasses, a plusieurs metres de 
 profondeur j'ai pu me convaincre que le poli des roches et les stries 
 (burinees dessus les serpentines) existent uniformement sous le 
 glacier comme sur ses flancs, et la direction des stries que j"ai ob- 
 servee le long du glacier depuis le pied de la Porte-Blanche jus- 
 qu 1 a la source de la Viege qui sort de la voute inferieure du glacier, 
 la direction de ces stries, dis-je, qui suivent toutes les inflections du 
 glacier, qui sont rectilignes partout ou le glacier se meut en droite 
 ligne, qui se courbent et prennent meme une direction ascendantes 
 la ou le glacier passe pardessus des aretes saillantes de rochers ; 
 cette direction ne laisse aucun doute sur la liaison qui existe entre 
 ces stries et le glacier lui-meme. On ne saurait douter non plus 
 quand on a poursuivi ce phenomene sur une aussi grande etendue, 
 que les grains de quartz provenant des granites tritures dans les 
 moraines marginales ne soient Temeri au moyen duquel le glacier 
 en se mouvant polit et raie le fond sur lequel il marche ; il me parait 
 impossible de supposer que ces surfaces polies et ces stries aient 
 existe anterieurement a la formation des glaciers, et que les glaciers 
 aient pu se mouvoir a leur surface sans les effacer. Ces surfaces 
 polies et ces stries sont si constantes autour des glaciers, si fraiches 
 dessous leurs masses, si bien conservees partout ou les glaciers 
 existent encore que les habitants de la contre'e les ont remarqui 
 et les attribuent au mouvement des glaces meme la ou le glacier a 
 
1 56 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vii. 
 
 disparu. Leur direction presqu'horizontale tout le long du bassin 
 du glacier de Zermatt, sur les flancs et parois du Riffel et d'Auf- 
 Platten s'oppose a toute idee d'avalanche, comme cause de ces 
 stries, car a raison de la configuration des lieux, toutes les avalanches 
 qui pourraint se former, couperaient necessairement a. angle droit 
 la direction des stries telle qu'on Tobserve ; en un mot les faits sont 
 de telle nature dans toute Petendue du cours des glaciers que je viens 
 de decrire, qu'il est impossible de ne pas reconnaitre que c'est le 
 glacier qui a poli ses bords au-dessus du niveau qu'il occupe main- 
 tenant et qu*il continue a polir les rochers sur les quels il repose 
 encore. Les faits sont si parlants que M. Studer qui a fait une fois 
 la course du Riffel avec moi s'est rendu a Tevidence quoiquil eut 
 nie jusqu'alors la liaison des surfaces polies et des stries avec les 
 glaciers. Une autre circonstance qui parle hautement en faveur de 
 cette liaison c'est que les surfaces polies et les stries sont d'autant 
 moins distinctes qu'on les observe sur des surfaces abandonnees 
 depuis plus longtemps des glaciers et ou ils ont cependant existe 
 de memoire d'homme, comme c'est par exemple le cas au-dessous 
 de Textremitd actuelle du glacier de Viesch, que les registres de la 
 paroisse d'Aunen constatent s'etre etendu jusque pres du village de 
 Viesch, c'est-a-dire une lieue plus bas que maintenant. 
 
 La vallee de Viesch est une des plus interessantes que je con- 
 naisse pour l'etude comparative de Taction des eaux et des glaces 
 sur le fond de leur lit ; et quelque soit la cause a. laquelle on attribue 
 les surfaces polies et les stries, toujours est-il que dans chaque vallee 
 ou on les observe, elles suivent en somrae la direction de la vallee, 
 c'est-a-dire, que pour prendre des exemples precis, les stries de la 
 vallee de Viesch s'inclinent du Nord au Sud vers le Rhone, tandis- 
 que celles qui accompagnent le glacier du Rhone sont dirigees de 
 l'Est a TOuest et celles qui accompagnent le glacier de l'Aar de l'Ouest 
 a TEst jusqu'a l'hospice du Grimsel, puis du Sud au Nord du 
 Grimsel a la Handeck ou il est certain que ces stries existent sur les 
 flancs du glacier de PAar jusqu'au niveau du col qui separe l'Ober- 
 land bernois du Valais. Pour pouvoir attribuer ces stries a des 
 courants il faudrait done (abstraction faite de tous les faits que j'ai 
 de'ja cites et qui prouvent une liaison intime entre les stries et les 
 glaciers) imaginer des courants remplissant jusqu'a les combler ces 
 
1839-40.] LETTER TO DE BEAUMONT. 157 
 
 hautes vallees et dirigcs Tun du Finsteraarhorn a TEst jusqu'au 
 Grimsel en sens inverse d'un autre courant parallele dirigc' des 
 sommites des glaciers du Rhone vers la Mayenwand, c'est-a-dire, de 
 TEst a TOuest et se precipitant dans la vallee du Rhone pour y 
 rencontrer un troisieme courant, tout aussi puissant dirige directement 
 du Nord au Sucl de la vallee de Viesch ; et tous ces courants devraient 
 naitre sur la crete si etroite qui separe ces trois vallees ; car comme 
 vous l'avez tres bien observe', les surfaces polies nous prouvent que 
 le relief du centre de TEurope n'a subi aucun changement notable 
 depuis qu'il est sous Finfluence des causes actuelles. Or revenons 
 a la vallee de Viesch dont la partie superieure est occupee par un 
 glacier et dans le fond de laquelle coule un torrent rapide dont le 
 cours n'est pas beaucoup plus court que ne serait le grand courant 
 auquel on voudrait attribuer les surfaces polies et les stries de cette 
 vallee, si jamais pareil courant avait pu naitre sur les cretes du 
 Viescherhorn, et voyons bien qu'elle influence le glacier actuel et le 
 torrent actuel exercent sur le fond de leur lit. 
 
 Les roches au bord du glacier et sous le glacier sont polies 
 et striees dans toute Pe'tendue que recouvre maintenant le glacier. 
 Partout ou l'on peut penetrer sous la glace ou ddblayer la grande 
 moraine qui Tentoure, les stries et les surfaces polies sont fraiches et 
 la direction des stries ne laisse aucun doute sur la cause qui les a 
 produites, ici encore elles sont dues aux glaciers II est vrai que le 
 torrent qui corrode le fond de cette vallee y creuse des sillons sinueux 
 et polit les cotes de son lit, mais ces polis effectues par Teau ont 
 un aspect tout different, ils sont mats, creux, souvent meme incrustes ; 
 ce sont des coups de gouge plus ou moins allonges, limites par des 
 aretes saillantes ; jamais ils ne sont strips ; jamais ils ne presentent 
 de surfaces un peu etendues, tandisque les surfaces polies par le 
 glacier sont bosselees en relief, les parties saillantes sont surtout 
 striees et les parties dans la roche ne font jamais saillie. Les sur- 
 faces polies qui sont encore maintenant sous le glacier clans cette 
 vallee sont la continuation directe de celles sur lesquelles le glacier 
 ne repose plus, mais sur lesquelles on sait qu'il a repose jadis. Ces 
 surfaces polies denudees que Ton voit sur les c6tes du cours du tor- 
 rent sont striees dans le meme sens que celles que Ton voit encore 
 sous le glacier ; elles different completement des surfaces corrod 
 
15S LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vii. 
 
 par Peau du torrent, mais elles sont identiques avec les parois de la 
 vallee qui ont conserve leur poli. Mais comme on ne voit aucune 
 trace analogue a celle du torrent dans la partie superieure de la 
 vallee. tandisque ses parois sont strides et polies a. de grandes 
 hauteurs absolument comme sous le glacier, il me parait dime bonne 
 logique de conclure que la cause qui a agi plus puissament autrefois 
 que maintenant, etait tin glacier plus etendu et non pas un grand 
 torrent. Je n'entrerai pas ici dans le detail des differences tres 
 notables que presentent les roches de differente nature sous Pinflu- 
 ence des glaciers et sous celle des courants, vous Pavez sans doute 
 deja. remarque. Je me bornerai a. dire que les serpentines de la 
 vallee de Zermatt et du Riffelhorn presentent le plus beau poli que 
 je connoisse ; que les granites des parois du glacier de PAar ne le 
 cede en rien aux serpentines la oil ils n'ont pas ete encore exposes a 
 Taction de Pair, mais que Patmosphere les rend facilement rudes au 
 toucher ; que les gneiss ne conservent guere de traces de stries et 
 de polis, que lorsque les glaciers ont agi sur les tranches de leurs 
 couches ; que les calcaires, tout en prenant facilement un tres beau 
 poli ne le conservent pas facilement lorsqulls ne restent pas re- 
 couverts par le limon des moraines apres avoir ete polis. Cela est 
 si vrai, que dans les Alpes ce n'est guere que sous les glaciers memes 
 que les calcaires alpins conservent les traces de leurs stries ; ces 
 faits sont line nouvelle preuve bien puissante de mon assertion, que 
 les surfaces polies et les stries sont reellement dues aux glaciers et 
 ne peuvent point avoir ete simplement conserves sous les glaciers. 
 
 Dans Pexpose de ces faits je me suis restreint aux phenomenes 
 tels qu'ils se presentent dans les Alpes. afin de ne point reveiller les 
 objections qui n'atteignent que leur extension dans des regions oil 
 les glaciers n'existent plus ; plus tard je reviendrai stir les glaciers du 
 Jura, lorsque Pensemble de mes observations sera aussi concluant 
 pour ces contrees qu'elles le sont pour les Alpes. Je dirai seulement 
 que mes courses de cet automne m'ont fourni de nouvelles preuves de 
 la liaison qui existe entre les blocs erratiques du Jura et les glaciers. 
 J'y ai acquis en meme temps la conviction qu'il a existe dans Pinte- 
 rieur du Jura des glaciers independants de ceux des Alpes. Les 
 physiciens s'arrangeront de ces faits comme ils le pourront. mais je 
 ne crois pas qu"il y ait quelque chose de plus contraire aux lois de la 
 
1 839-4°-] LETTER TO DE BEAUMONT. 159 
 
 physique dans les phenomenes qui nous dcmontrent Texistence d'une 
 creation (de faune et de flore) tropicale en Suisse, que dans ceux 
 qui lui assignent a une autre epoque un climat boreal. 
 
 En vous adressant prochainement les autres planches de mon 
 livre je les accompagnerai de quelques observations sur la marche 
 des glaciers, sur leur formation et sur leur structure intime. Une 
 troisieme notice sera relative aux phenomenes eloignes des Alpes qui 
 je crois se rattachent a ceux dont je viens de vous entretenir. Avant 
 de les publier je desirerais vous les soumettre dans leur ensemble. 
 
 Vous m'obligeriez infiniment en m'exposant d'une maniere precise 
 les objections que vous avez a faire a ces considerations. Quoique 
 j'aie deja fait de nombreuses observations therm ometriques sur les 
 eaux courantes et sur les petits lacs et les mares des glaciers et sur 
 les glaces memes, je fais de nouveaux preparatifs pour aller etudier 
 Pete prochain les profondeurs des glaciers en faisant des sondages 
 pour traverser tout le massif des glaciers et penetrer jusque dans le 
 sol sous-jacent. Si vous aviez quelques observations a me proposer, 
 je les ferais avec le plus grand plaisir , je serais egalement fort 
 redevable a M . Arago s^l voulait bien me faire part de ses desiderata 
 relativement aux glaciers. Je compte passer Pete prochain plusieurs 
 semaines dans le cceur des Alpes. 
 
 J'ai visite cet ete tous les abords de la grande mer de glace qui 
 s'etend entre le Valais et POberland afin de nVorienter prealablement, 
 et mon intention est de la traverser dans tous les sens si le temps m'est 
 favorable JHai deja. penetre par le glacier de l'Aar jusqu'au pied 
 du Finsteraarhorn, et par le glacier d'Aletsch jusqu'au pied des 
 Viescherhorner, derriere la Jungfrau, et passe de la au glacier de 
 Viesch. Mon projet serait de traverser de Grindehvald au Grimsel 
 par l'arete d'Ashchwung. 
 
 Si vous pensez que ces observations puissent interesscr l'Acade'mie 
 des sciences (de l'Institut de France), vous nvobligeriez en lui en com- 
 muniquant succinctement le contenu. Ne jugez pas trop seVerement 
 mes dessins, mais pensez a la difficulte qu'il y avait a encadrer dans 
 des dimensions donnees, des vues privees de toute vegetation, ne 
 reprdsentant que des rochers nus, des glaces, et des neiges, ou Ton 
 rencontre a peine des etres vivants, par ci par la seulement quelques 
 Pyrrhocorax, quelques Gelinottes. rarement des marmottes, plus 
 
160 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vii. 
 
 rarement encore des chamois et (Toil les habitations des hommes 
 se voient dans le lointain, au fond des vallees, comme dans Tabyme. 
 Je vais faire copier mes croquis du Jura pour vous les envoyer 
 immediatement. Je ne tarderai pas non plus a vous envoyer ma 
 notice sur vos Echinodermes. 
 
 The winter of 1839-1840 was employed in writing, be- 
 sides the continuation of the " Fossils Fishes," a volume 
 on the glaciers, and two monographs on the echino- 
 derms, and on the Trigonia ; and Vogt translated the 
 manuscript of the "Etudes sur les glaciers" into Ger- 
 man, in order to have the French and German edition 
 issued at the same time. The book appeared in Sep- 
 tember, 1840, with a splendid folio atlas of eighteen 
 beautifully executed plates. In it Agassiz very frankly 
 gives an account of his five months' companionship in 
 1836 with de Charpentier, who taught him the glacial 
 doctrine, and of his returning with several of his friends : 
 among them, Karl Schimper, Francillon of Lausanne, 
 who became his brother-in-law, Max Braun, Dinkel, and 
 his secretary, to visit again the classical localities first 
 shown to him by de Charpentier. The historical part 
 on the glaciers is very full and just to every observer 
 who had entered the field before him. The work is 
 dedicated to " M. Venetz, Ingenieur des Ponts et 
 Chaussees au Canton de Vaud, et a M. J. de Charpen- 
 tier, Directeur des Mines de Bex." Notwithstanding 
 all these precautions, the work displeased Venetz, de 
 Charpentier, and Hugi, his three predecessors in the 
 study of the alpine glaciers of Switzerland. De Char- 
 pentier was at work on his volume "Essai sur les 
 glaciers," which was then passing through the press, 
 
i839-4°-] "ETUDES SUR LES GLACIERS.' 161 
 
 and he thought that his pupil Agassiz might have 
 waited until he himself had given to the world his 
 researches, before printing what he had learned from 
 him. It was a question of politeness, which de Char- 
 pentier emphasized perhaps too strongly, for Agassiz 
 did not intend to wound him ; on the contrary, he pro- 
 claimed the priority of Venetz's and de Charpentier's 
 discoveries. But the method used by Agassiz shows a 
 want of courtesy in his eagerness to propagate and 
 make known the new doctrine. A few words are neces- 
 sary to explain the estrangement of friendly relations 
 between Agassiz and de Charpentier. Agassiz, with 
 his insatiable appetite, and his great faculty of assimi- 
 lation, digested the whole doctrine of the glaciers, and 
 made use of it, as it was almost his own. He did not 
 want to wrong de Charpentier in any way, but he was 
 so ardent, so impulsive, that he appeared in the eyes of 
 de Charpentier and his friends to be too eager in taking 
 the wind from the sails of others. De Charpentier's 
 manuscript was finished the 31st of October, 1840, and 
 he received Agassiz's "Etudes sur les glaciers' only 
 three days before, on the 28th of October, and thus had 
 time only to look it over and notice it in his Introduc- 
 tion, pp. vii and viii. As Agassiz continued in his work 
 to maintain his fanciful theory of transportation of 
 boulders, by sliding over the ice-sheet, de Charpentier's 
 objections, pp. 232-241, were timely and to the point. 
 The " Essai sur les glaciers" appeared a few months 
 later, in February, 1841. Of that work the biographer 
 of de Charpentier says: "The work will remain a 
 classic. Unhappily the modesty of the author induced 
 
 M 
 
iS2 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vii. 
 
 him to publish it at Lausanne, which explains why it 
 was so little known in France, in Germany, and other 
 countries, when, if it had been published in Paris, with 
 a simultaneous German edition in a great city of Ger- 
 many, it would have been one of the most important 
 and at the same time popular books of the time. I 
 cannot better express my admiration for the work than 
 to say that it is impossible to be truly a geologist 
 without having read and studied it ' (Dr. H. Lebert, 
 "Biography of Jean de Charpentier "). 
 
 The following letter from Agassiz to de Charpentier 
 explains the impression made on both by the publica- 
 tion of their two works on the glaciers and the trans- 
 portation of boulders : — 
 
 Neuchatel, 28 juin, 1841. 
 a M. J. de Charpentier, 
 
 Directeur des Mines, a. Bex. 
 
 Mon Cher Monsieur, — Apres beaucoup de demarches inutiles 
 j'ai enfin pu me procurer votre ouvrage sur les glaciers, etc. Je Tai 
 lu avec avidite et j'y ai trouve beaucoup de faits d\m grand interet. 
 Je me suis convaincu de nouveau que nous avons tous encore beau- 
 coup a apprendre sur ce sujet. Je regrette une seule chose e'est 
 que vous ayez si peu mis a. profit mes observations, vous auriez pu 
 par la completer plusieurs points de votre travail et vous donner 
 le merite de fondre tout ce que Ton sait maintenant de positif sur 
 la question des glaciers, d'harmoniser les denominations divergentes 
 que vous avez employees, d'etablir la synonymie des votres avec les 
 miennes, etc. Puisque vous n'y avez pas songe je nren chargerai 
 et malgre le mauvais vouloir que vous avez mis partout en me citant, 
 vous n'aurez pas trop a vous plaindre de moi, car je tiens avant tout 
 aux progres de la science sans acception de personnes. J'ai d'ailleurs 
 une masse d'observations nouvelles a publier, recueillies dans les 
 montagnes des Isles Britanniques Tautomne dernier et au commence- 
 ment du mois de Mars de cette annee sur le glacier inferieur de 
 TAar que j"ai parcouru jusqu'a TAbschwung. 
 
1839-40-] LETTER TO DE CHARPENTIER. 163 
 
 Uaffection que je vous ai toujours conserve me fait regretter pour 
 vous que vous vous soyez donne le tort de critiquer des bagatelles 
 de mes planches et de mon livre, sans citer aucun fait instructif, 
 excepte la temperature du glacier. Cette reserve est tellement frap- 
 pante que deja deux de mes amis nfen ont exprimc leur etonnement. 
 Mais cela s'oubliera j'espere. 
 
 Au revoir a. ZUrich si vous y allez, si non j'espere sur votre terri- 
 toire un peu plus tard. Mes respects a Mademoiselle de Charpen- 
 tier. Agrdez Passurance, etc., etc. 
 
 Louis Agassiz. 
 
 This letter ended the friendly relations between two 
 unusually congenial men of genius, who ought to have 
 remained friends, as workers in the same field and as 
 neighbours. If left to himself, Agassiz would have 
 bridged the chasm ; but he was already too much in- 
 fluenced by his secretary and by some others of his 
 collaborators, more or less interested in keeping matters 
 embroiled. After repeatedly hearing Agassiz, and once 
 hearing de Charpentier, I do not hesitate to say that, 
 but for the objectionable surroundings in which Agassiz 
 lived from 1839 until he left Switzerland, the wound 
 would have been promptly healed and friendship re- 
 newed. 
 
 On the 5th of August, 1840, Agassiz left Neuchatel 
 for the Grimsel. There he took into his service two of 
 the best Oberland guides, Jacob Lcuthold and Jean 
 Wahren, the latter a mason by trade, and started at 
 once for the lower part of the glacier of the Aar. The 
 plan was to establish a station on the glacier itself, and 
 for that purpose to make use of Hugi's cabin, found 
 by Agassiz in the preceding year, in a very good 
 state of preservation, as already reported. But to his 
 
1 64 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vii. 
 
 astonishment the cabin had disappeared, and it was 
 with some difficulty that Agassiz at last found some of 
 the debris, two hundred feet below the place occupied 
 by the cabin in 1839. After consultation with the 
 guides, who gave the very practicable advice to build 
 a cabin on the rock bordering the left side of the 
 glacier, Agassiz, who was resolved to imitate Hugi, 
 gave all sorts of reasons for establishing the cabin on 
 the median moraine, and finally an enormous block of 
 micaceous slate was selected. A part of the block pro- 
 jected in a sort of roof, under which a wall was built 
 by the mason. Four porters, lent by the housekeeper 
 of the Grimsel's hospice, to carry provisions and bed- 
 ding, helped in the construction of the cabin, which 
 was inhabited the same evening. The opening of the 
 cabin was toward the south, and a good sketch of it 
 has been published in the " Excursions aux Alpes," by 
 Desor, p. 157. During the night the cabin was chris- 
 tened by the name " Hotel des Neuchatelois," which 
 was engraved by the mason in big letters on the block, 
 and the names of the first six occupants were a few 
 days after added. They were Louis Agassiz, Charles 
 Vogt, Ed. Desor, Celestin Nicolet, Henri Coulon, 
 Francois de Pourtales, the last two being students at 
 the Neuchatel Academy. 
 
 Observations were begun at once on every point 
 pertaining to glaciers, including structure, motion, 
 tables, moraines, neves, climate and meteorology, red 
 snow, crevasses, etc. Visitors from the Grimsel came 
 now and then ; and, to the great joy of Agassiz, one 
 day he saw wending their ways with some difficulty 
 
1839-40.] HOTEL DES NEUCHATELOIS. 165 
 
 over the glacier to reach his "Hotel des Neuchatelois," 
 his wife, her sister, Fraulein Emmy Braun, and his son 
 Alex., the latter borne on the shoulders of the guide 
 Jacob. That day the dinner on the glacier was par- 
 ticularly luxurious, fresh provisions having come with 
 the visitors, and the pleasure of the unexpected meet- 
 ing enlivened the otherwise rather rough establishment, 
 with its numerous discomforts. 
 
 After a visit to the top of the Strahleck, the party 
 left the " Hotel des Neuchatelois," after a stay of only 
 six days, from the 10th to the 16th of August, 1840. 
 Before returning to Neuchatel, Agassiz traversed the 
 Scheideck, and made observations on the glaciers of 
 Grindelwald, of Schwartzwald, and of Rosenlaui ; he 
 visited also the upper part of the glacier of the Aar, 
 and passed a night on the Siedelhorn. 
 
 Directly after returning to Neuchatel, Agassiz left 
 for England. During the meeting of the British Asso- 
 ciation for the Advancement of Science, in September, 
 at Glasgow, he had an opportunity to see how little 
 progress the glacial question had made among English 
 naturalists : it was almost unknown. Buckland alone, 
 during a protracted visit to Switzerland in 1838, and 
 after resisting as long as he could all the facts concern- 
 ing glacial action, was at last converted by Agassiz to 
 the new theory. But his conversion had no other effect 
 on English geologists than to bring forward a semi- 
 caricature drawn by Thomas' Sopwith, which was Largely 
 circulated as a portrait of Buckland dressed in " cos- 
 tume of the glaciers," and which has been reproduced 
 since in "Memoir of Sir Roderick Murchison," by A. 
 
1 66 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vii. 
 
 Geikie, Vol. I., p. 309. The reproduction by Archibald 
 Geikie is not, however, a complete one ; all the devices 
 and explanations written on the big roller of maps and 
 under the scratched stones have been omitted, and even 
 the title of the semi-caricature has been altered. It is 
 easy to see the reasons for these suppressions and alter- 
 ations. The mining engineer, Thomas Sopwith, has 
 stated the objections made against the glacial theory in 
 such childish and ridiculous words, that to repeat them 
 was considered by Geikie as reflecting little credit on all 
 those who made fun of the glacial epoch, with Murchi- 
 son as their leader. 1 
 
 1 Here is the exact description of the semi-caricature. Buckland, 
 equipped as a glacialist, stands on a flat bit of rock covered with scratches, 
 with the following explanation: "The rectilinear course of these grooves 
 corresponds with the motions of an immense body, the momentum of which 
 does not allow it to change its course upon slight resistance." On the 
 polished rocks is written : " Prodigious glacial scratches"; and in order to 
 add to the value of the opposition made by anti-glacialists, the author has 
 engraved, just under the last sentence, "Scratched by T. Sopwith." The 
 title of the drawing is : " Costume of the Glaciers." Under his right 
 arm Buckland holds a rather large and long roller, with the inscription on 
 it : " Maps of ancient glaciers." At his feet, on his right side, are drawn : 
 "Specimen No. I, scratched by a glacier thirty-three thousand three hun- 
 dred and thirty-three years before the Creation"; and just below, another 
 specimen of a " cailloux strie," marked : " Scratched by a cart-wheel on 
 Waterloo Bridge the day before yesterday." It is now almost incredible 
 that such objections should have been able to elicit anything more than a 
 smile at the ignorance of plain facts. 
 
 Philip Duncan was better inspired, when he wrote in his poetic " Dia- 
 logue between Dr. Buckland and a Rocky Boulder " : — 
 
 Boulder, respondit. 
 • •••..... 
 " And many a rock, indented with sharp force, 
 And still-seen strice, shows my ancient course : 
 And if you doubt it, go with friend Agassiz 
 And view the signs in Scotland and Swiss passes." 
 
1839-40-] MURCHISON OPPOSITION. 167 
 
 Murchison, in a letter dated Sept. 26, 1840, in speak- 
 ing of the Glasgow meeting says : " Agassiz gave us a 
 great field-day on Glaciers, and I think we shall end in 
 having a compromise between himself and us of the 
 floating icebergs ! I spoke against the general applica- 
 tion of his theory." This was precisely what was to be 
 expected from the English geologists, who are always 
 strongly disinclined to accept any new truth, if dis- 
 covered by foreigners. Even the Uniformitarians, at 
 that time already very numerous in England, with 
 Charles Lyell as their leader, did not see the splendid 
 opportunity to add a new crown of laurels to Uniformi- 
 tarianism, or the doctrine of existing causes, and they 
 persisted in getting entangled among masses of floating 
 iceberg. 
 
 In company with Murchison, Agassiz visited the 
 North of Scotland to see the Old Red Sandstone and 
 its fishes. During the journey Agassiz found a great 
 number of traces of ancient glaciers, and in vain 
 showed them to Murchison, who, on the 29th of 
 October, wrote to Sir Philip Egerton : " If you have 
 not been frost-bitten by Buckland, you have, at all 
 events, had plenty of friction, scratching, and polishing, 
 before now, and next year you may give us a paper on 
 the glacier of Wyvis and the ' moraines ' on which you 
 sport ! I intend to make fight." On a question in regard 
 to which he knew next to nothing. 
 
 However, Murchison's "fight' amounted to the old 
 rehearsal of the floating iceberg theory and mud cur- 
 rents, two exploded doctrines, rather antiquated even in 
 England after Agassiz's visit of 1840. 
 
1 68 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vii. 
 
 On the 4th of November, 1840, Agassiz read before 
 the Geological Society of London his paper " On 
 Glaciers, and the Evidence of their having once existed 
 in Scotland, Ireland, and England " (" Proceed. Geol. 
 Soc. London," Vol. III., pp. 327-332). This memoir — 
 a masterly one — opened a new chapter in the geology 
 of the British Isles. In the " Life of Murchison," by 
 Archibald Geikie, we find the biographer saying (p. 309, 
 Vol. I.) that " the remarkable series of observations by 
 Agassiz among the glaciers of the Alps, and the exten- 
 sion of them to Scotland by Buckland, Lyell, and Agassiz 
 himself," — a sentence which seems to imply that Agassiz 
 came after Buckland and Lyell. The man who with great 
 difficulty, and after a stout and protracted resistance, 
 during a prolonged visit to Switzerland, in 1838, taught 
 Buckland how to recognize traces of ancient glaciers, is 
 represented as occupying only a third place in the 
 discovery of the evidence of the existence of glaciers in 
 Scotland. The truth is, that Buckland, after being 
 converted to the new doctrine, informed Agassiz that 
 he had noticed similar phenomena in Scotland, but had 
 attributed them to diluvial action. He waited until 
 Agassiz came to Scotland, and it was when in his com- 
 pany that Agassiz said, as they approached the castle 
 of the Duke of Argyll, " Here we shall find our first 
 traces of glaciers " ; and surely enough, the carriage 
 as it entered the valley rode over an ancient terminal 
 moraine. Then, and not until then, Buckland was made 
 sure that his indications were well based. It is impor- 
 tant to add that Buckland did not claim any priority. 
 On the contrary, he read his memoir " On the Evidences 
 
1839-40.] LETTER TO HUMBOLDT. 169 
 
 of Glaciers in Scotland and the North of England," after 
 Agassiz's paper, and to sustain him by what he had 
 learned in his company during the fall and afterwards. 
 At present, to make amends for their slowness in 
 recognizing old glaciers, the Scotch geologists, with 
 James Geikie at their head, are claiming that they had 
 found evidences of the existence of no less than five 
 glacial periods during the Quaternary epoch. 
 
 Agassiz's three-months visit in the British Isles dur- 
 ing the autumn of 1840 may be counted as his most 
 successful period of happy and important discoveries, 
 and he returned with the great satisfaction of having 
 extended the glacial doctrine to Scotland, the North of 
 England, and Ireland, and having first explained the 
 complicated organization of the fossil flying-fishes of 
 the Old Red Sandstone. The following letter to 
 Humboldt gives an excellent resume of his three 
 months' exploration : — 
 
 Neuchatel, 27 dec, 1840. 
 
 a Son Excellence M. A. de Humboldt. 
 
 Mon Cher et Excellent Ami, — Je suis de retour a. Neuch 
 depuis huit jours et deja je me suis remis au travail. J'ai pris la 
 ferme resolution de ne rien faire cet hiver que des " Poissons fos- 
 siles" et j^spere achever mon ouvrage avant Pete. Pour y parvenir 
 je ne publierai pour le moment que les mille especes les plus i;. 
 ressantes de maniere a en faire un corps d'ouvrage lie et je don- 
 nerai plus tard dans un Supplement 6 a 700 especes que je n'ai ; 
 encore complement etudiees. Mon dernier voyage en Angleterre 
 nVa fait faire des progres reels en Ichthyologie fossile ; j'ai surtout 
 etendu mes observations sur les especes siluriennes, deVonienn 
 et houilleres. Les genres de P - Old Red 1 ' sont surtout ti 
 remarquables. Le prc'tendu Cole'optere gigantesque de Fifeshire l 
 
 1 " History of the County of Fife," by J. Anderson, 410, Edinburgh. 
 
r 7 o LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vii. 
 
 est un poisson Pterichthysl J'ai cTautres types tout aussi extraordi- 
 naires Coccosteus. Ce qu'il y a de tres curieux e'est que tous ces 
 poissons ont des tetes disproportionnees, egalant. depassant meme 
 le tronc en longueur et toujours de beaucoup plus larges, dans le 
 style des Torpiles, mais a charpente osseuse et couverts de larges 
 ecussons emailles On m'a communique en somme environ 250 
 especes nouvelles. J'ai egalement examine un nombre immense 
 d'Echinodermes. Heureusement que j'ai obtenu des exemplaires 
 de la plupart des especes, car mon temps n'aurait pas suffi pour les 
 decrire en detail. 
 
 Cependant je vous avouerai que ce qui nVa fait le plus de plaisir 
 e'est d'avoir decouvert des traces indubitables de glaciers sur une 
 tres grande echelle. Les marques de leur presence sont si frappantes 
 que tous les geoloques qui les ont vues sont restes convaincus du 
 fait. Depuis que j'ai rendu compte de mes observations a la Societe 
 geologique (de Londres), les memoires sur ce sujet se succedent. 
 Buckland a decrit ceux qu'il a observe au centre de PEcosse et au 
 Nord-Ouest de FAngleterre ;Lyell ceux du Forfarshire. Pour moi je 
 m'etais surtout applique a. demontrer qu'ils ont reellement existe dans 
 les Isles Britanniques, apres en avoir suivi les traces presque dans 
 toute TEcosse, au Nord, a TOuest au Centre et au Sud de Tlrlande 
 et dans tout le Nord de TAngleterre. J'ai retrouve les memes sur- 
 faces polies qu'en Suisse, les memes moraines laterales et terminales, 
 la meme disposition rayonnante du centre des chaines de montagnes 
 vers la plaine, les lacs partout egalement proteges contre le remplis- 
 sage par les glaciers qui en occupaient le fond. 
 
 Je me suis assure que toutes les routes paralleles de Glen Roy et de 
 Glen Spear ont ete produits par des lacs flottant des glaces et barres 
 par de grands glaciers dont on voit encore la direction aux traces 
 qu'ils ont laisses au fond des vallees, comme si les glaciers d'Argen- 
 tiere et des Bossons barraient la vallee de Chamounix au-dessus 
 et au-dessous du Prieure de maniere a transformer la vallee en un 
 lac. Le fond de Glen Spear est strie transversalement. Le fait 
 le plus extraordinaire, Tabsence des deux routes paralleles superi- 
 eures dans la partie orientale de Glen Spear se trouve maintenant 
 expliquee ! 
 
 J'ai accumule' tant de preuves que personne en Angleterre ne 
 
1839-40-] LETTER TO HUMBOLDT. 171 
 
 doute maintenant que les glaciers iVy aient existe, et ceux la qui en 
 ont le plus vu ont ete convaincu les premiers : Sabine, Sir George 
 Mackensie. Je n'ai trouve d'opposition que contre Textension que 
 je leur attribue, encore cette opposition ne s'appuie-t-elle deja plus 
 que sur Pinvraisemblance, quelques uns disent Timpossibilite phy- 
 sique d'un refroidissement temporaire assez considerable pour avoir 
 couvert PEurope d'une calotte de glace. Cependant j'ai observe 
 mes surfaces polies et stries jusqiCau niveau de la mer sur toute 
 la plaine qui s'abaisse d'Enniskillen vers Dublin ; la les stries sont 
 dirigees du N. O au S. E., puis sur la cote occidentale d'Ecosse ou 
 je les ai meme vu plonger sous la mer, elles vont du N. E. au S. O. 
 dans certaines vallees et du S. E. au N. O. dans d'autres ; sur la 
 cote orientale d'Ecosse elles vont de FOuest a PEst le plus souvent. 
 Dans Tinterieur j'en ai vu qui etaient dirigees du Nord au Sud, et 
 ailleurs d'autres marchant du Sud au Nord. Notez bien que par- 
 tout la direction des stries et des moraines indique une marche cen- 
 trifuge, et nulle part un refoulement allant des cotes de la mer a 
 Tinterieur des terres. Impossible des lors de songer a des courants. 
 Si Ton pouvait penser a un rehaussement du sol, les lacs et les routes 
 paralleles s'y opposeraient, et pour cela d'ailleurs il faudrait un sou- 
 levement simultane des montagnes partout ou le phenomene a ete 
 observe, ce que la geologie dement. 
 
 Les observations paleontologiques de Mr. James Smith de Lar- 
 denhill ne contribueront pas peu a. etablir ma theorie. II vient de 
 decouvrir une faune arctique, sur les bords de la Clyde, dans les 
 limons superposes aux detritus des glaciers, a 40, 50, 80 pieds au- 
 dessus du niveau de la mer. Les especes sont identiques avec celles 
 qui vivent maintenant au detroit de Behring, et different complete- 
 ment de celles qui vivent sur les cotes d'Ecosse. 
 
 Les observations d'Herschel sur les etoiles variables et perio- 
 diques pouront peut-etre rendre un jour compte de ce refroidisse- 
 ment. 
 
 Je suis desole d'etre oblige de m'occuper maintenant de Poissons 
 fossiles et de devoir laisser vieillir toutes les observations que j'ai 
 faites sur ce sujet, tant pendant ma course dans les Alpes au mois 
 d'Aout que dans mon voyage en Angleterre, mais je ne cederai pas 
 a la tentation et les " Poissons fossiles " s'acheveront avant que je 
 
1 72 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vii. 
 
 retourne aux glaciers, sauf une apparition que je compte y faire au 
 plus fort de Phiver pour verifier quelques signaux. Un heureux 
 evenement m'a un peu remonte du decouragement sous Tinfiuence 
 duquel je vous ecrivis de Glasgow. J'ai vendu les dessins origi- 
 naux de mes Poissons Fossiles, 1 en sorte que j'aurai quelques mois 
 exempts d'inquietudes. 
 
 J'espere que vous avez recu mes " Etudes sur les Glaciers " ; ne 
 les jugez pas trop severement comme livre ; je suis trop peu au 
 courant de ce qui s'est fait en physique pour avoir pu tenir compte 
 de tout ce que Ton sait et eviter les redites ; mais du moins j'ai 
 observe avec tout le soin dont j'etais capable et j'ai la conscience 
 d'avoir eloignee toute idee systematique dans l'exposition des faits 
 pour etre plus libre de me donner carriere dans le dernier chapitre. 
 Vous me rendriez un grand service en m'ecrivant bien franchement 
 ce que vous en pensez quant au fond ; j'ai pris Thabitude de profiter 
 des critiques et quand elles viennent d'un ami comme vous, ce sont 
 de veritables bienfaits. 
 
 Je vous adresserai par la premiere occasion les Comptes Rendus 
 des seances de la Societe Geologique de Londres, que Buckland m'a 
 remis pour vous et ou vous trouverez quelques autres detailes sur la 
 question des glaciers. 
 
 II parait qu'Elie de Beaumont veut s'obstiner a nier meme les 
 faits les plus evidents. C'est ainsi qu'il m'affirmait l'autre jour h 
 Paris que les roches polies et striees qui se trouvent so us les glaciers 
 memes et dont la direction coincide avec le mouvement actuel des 
 glaciers avaient deja la meme apparence avaut la formation des 
 glaciers. Des masses d'un pareil poids ont done pu se mouvoir 
 pendant des milliers d'anne'es sur un calcaire aussi mou que celui 
 de la vallee de Rosenlaui sans deranger un atdme de matiere!! Puis 
 e'est le courant de TOber Hassli qui en bondissant de Meyringen 
 a creuse le lac de Brienz et d\m second "coup celui de Thun!! Ou 
 done naissaient tous ces courants alpins pour se verser a la fois au 
 Sud, a TEst et au Nord avec une velocite suffisante pour lancer sur 
 le Jura des blocs de 60,000 pieds cubes! M. de Beaumont pre'tend 
 
 1 Lord Francis Egerton, a relative of Sir Philip Egerton, made the pur* 
 chase and generously presented them to the British Museum. 
 
1839-40] LETTER TO HUMBOLDT. 173 
 
 que ce sont des debacles de glaciers ; mais alors ce devraient etre 
 des glaciers plus considerables que maintenant et il devait y avoir 
 des glaciers partout ou le phenomene des blocs erratiques se pre- 
 sente avec les memes caracteres qu'en Suisse. Au lieu de refuter 
 ma theorie ; celle de M. de Beaumont la suppose comme antece- 
 dent, c'est-a-dire qu'elle n'embrasse qu'une petite partie du phe- 
 nomene, celle du retrait successif des glaciers. 
 
 Peu s'en est fallu que Murchison ne m'ait devance dans la de- 
 couverte*des glaciers en Ecosse. Dans son systeme Silurien il 
 suppose qu'il a du exister de grandes etendues de glaces qui auraient 
 charrie les graviers et les blocs soit-disant diluviens, mais il n'a pas 
 songe a en chercher les traces. Et chose curieuse, durant nos dis- 
 cussions personne ne s'est oppose plus obstinement que lui a l'exis- 
 tence des glaciers, qu'il a cependant fini par admettre aussi. 1 
 
 Au moment ou j'ai quitte Londres, Buckland partait pour le pays 
 de Galles 011 je n'ai pu aller et ou il trouvera certainement des choses 
 curieuses. Mais j'oublie que Phiver approche et que deja vous devez 
 avoir a. Berlin plus de glaces que vous n'en voulez sans celles dont 
 je viens de vous charger a profusion. Je n'ose rien vous dire pour 
 M. de Buch quoique je l'aime toujours de tout mon cceur, on nVa dit 
 qu'a Erlangen (Societe Allemande des naturalistes) il s'etait fache 
 tout rouge contre moi parce que je fais les glaciers assez grands 
 pour fournir de Teau necessaire a. ses courants. 
 
 Adieu, mon bien cher ami, ecrivez moi bientot quelques lignes, 
 vos lettres sont toujours pour moi des tresors, car elles me donnent 
 
 1 It seems that Murchison, a short time afterward, again changed his 
 views, and returned to the floating iceberg and mud current theory; for in 
 his "Geology of Russia," 1845, ne rejected "the glacier theory," explain- 
 ing the Scandinavian drift and erratic blocks in Russia by trainees under 
 the sea, made by " moistened masses of drift, under powerful causes of 
 translation " ; and in his address at the anniversary meeting of the Geo- 
 logical Society of London, 1842, he says: "The existence of glaciers in 
 Scotland and England is not, at all events, established to the satisfaction 
 of what I believe to be by far the greater number of British g 
 It was not until more than twenty years after Agassiz's visit of 1S40, that 
 at last, in 1S62, Murchison wrote him that he was wrong in opposing as 
 he did the glacial period. He took time to consider! 
 
174 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vii. 
 
 ce courage et ce contentement cTesprit sans lesquels on ne fait rien 
 de bon. Ce qui me fait surtout croire que j'ai bien vu en Ecosse, 
 c'est (|ue c'est a vous que je rendais compte mentalement de mes 
 observations. 
 
 Votre tout devoue pour la vie, 
 
 Louis Agassiz. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 1841-1842. 
 Visit during the Winter to the Aar Glacier — Letters to Jules 
 
 THURMANN AND TO EUGENIO SlSMONDA — " MONOGRAPHIE D'ECHINO- 
 DERMES VIVANTS ET FOSS1LES " — LETTER TO DESHAYES — ANOTHER 
 
 Letter to Thurmann — Visit of James D. Forbes at the "Hotel 
 
 DES NEUCHATELOIS " — ASCENT OF THE JUNGFRAU — OTHER VISITORS 
 AT THE " H6TEL DES NEUCHATELOIS " — FORBES AT NeUCHATEL AND 
 
 La Chaux-de-fonds — Inauguration of the Academy of Neu- 
 chatel, l8th of november, 184i — agassiz's letter to the rec- 
 TOR of the Academy — His Appointment as Rector for the 
 Year i 842-1 843 — Controversy with James D. Forbes on the 
 laminated Structure of Glaciers — A New Cabin to replace 
 the " Hotel des Neuchatelois" — Stay at the Aar Glacier from 
 the Beginning of July, 1842, to the Middle of September — 
 Discoveries of John Tyndall — Dispute with Karl Schimper — 
 Daniel Dollfus-Ausset. 
 
 The winter of 1841 was so rainy at Neuchatcl, and 
 in consequence so much fresh snow fell on the Ober- 
 land Alps, that Agassiz was obliged to postpone his 
 proposed visit to the " Hotel des Neuchatelois ' until 
 the 8th of March. On that day he left Neuchatcl with 
 his secretary, reaching the Grimsel three days later, 
 without very great difficulty. An hour before their 
 arrival, the guardian of the hospice was advised by the 
 movements of his dog, a fine and very large Newfound- 
 land, that some one was approaching. As is often tin- 
 case in the Alps and mountainous country, the temper- 
 
 i7S 
 
176 LOUIS AGASS1Z. [chap. viii. 
 
 ature was higher at the Grimsel than at Interlaken. 
 The amount of snow was enormous ; the hospice was 
 buried in it ; and when the travellers, after a rather 
 exhausting walk, reached the place where the " Hotel 
 des Xeuchatelois " should have been, they were greatly 
 surprised to see nothing of it but a sort of hump on the 
 crest of snow which covered the moraine. However, 
 after forcing their way around this hump, they found 
 on one side a few feet of the big boulder. It was 
 impossible to enter it without clearing away an enor- 
 mous mass of snow ; so Agassiz contented himself with 
 lying down on the snow, and enjoying the marvellous 
 spectacle around him. The weather was perfect ; the 
 air so clear that every topographical feature of the 
 Finsteraarhorn and other peaks was seen with a dis- 
 tinctness unknown during the summer season. The 
 travellers went as far as the Abschwung, then returned 
 to the place of the " Hotel des Neuchatelois," where 
 they saw the tops of two very high stakes placed there 
 in the preceding August in holes bored into the ice. 
 Agassiz remained behind with one guide to make sev- 
 eral observations with a thermometrograph, and finally 
 returned to the Grimsel, after a journey of twelve hours, 
 from 4 o'clock a.m. to 4 o'clock p.m., somewhat tired, 
 but very happy in his success ; for he was certainly 
 the first visitor to the Aar Glacier in the winter season. 
 From the Grimsel Agassiz crossed by Meyringen to 
 Rosenlaui, where he visited the glacier to examine the 
 polishing of the rocks in contact with the ice, and also 
 to determine the quantity of water arising from the 
 glacier. And in regard to the latter point, like de Saus- 
 
1841-42.] LETTER TO THURMANN. 177 
 
 sure at the glacier des Bois at Chamounix, he concluded 
 that during the winter the glacier yielded only spring 
 water. A week after leaving Neuchatel they returned 
 home rather sunburned by their exposure to the intense 
 sunlight on the snow-field they had travelled over. 
 
 We have seen in the last letter to Humboldt that 
 Agassiz gathered a large collection of fossil echino- 
 derms during his stay in England in 1840. He had 
 done the same in passing through Paris, and was very 
 diligent in getting specimens from every geologist liv- 
 ing among the Jura Mountains, — as Thurmann of 
 Porrentruy, d'Udressier and Parandier of Besancon, 
 and Merian of Bale. The following letter to Jules 
 Thurmann gives some rather curious details : — 
 
 LE 7, 1840 or 1841 ? (date not distinct). 
 
 Monsieur, — Void la premiere livraison de mes Echinodermes, 
 j'y joins la premiere des Etudes critiques sur les Mollusgues, quoique 
 le texte ne soit pas encore pret, dans l'espoir que vous aurez peut- 
 etre a me communiquer quelques Trigonies ou Myes que je n*ai pas 
 et que je pourrais encore ajouter a mes planches. Le prix des 
 Echinodermes est de 10 francs, je reclamerai celui des Mollusques 
 en vous envoyant le texte. 
 
 Je viens de faire demander a. M. Nicolet les deux premieres 
 livraisons de Sowerby, la $feme est tres avancee ; le prix de la livraison 
 coioriee est de 10 francs. M. Nicolet vous enverra lui-meme par 
 occasions les livraisons. 
 
 Je pense que vous apprendrez avec plaisir que Gressly a repris son 
 activate d'autrefois ; jai recu depuis peu plusieurs bonnes lettres do 
 lui. Excusez-moi de tant tarder de vous envoyer mes rnoules : j'ai 
 encore eu des chagrins de famille cet hiver qui m'ont fait passer 
 plusieurs semaines en Allemagne et singulierement de'range' mes 
 affaires ; des que je le pourrai je rcparerai mes torts. 
 
 Votre tres de'vouc serviteur, 
 
 Agassiz. 
 
 N 
 
I7 8 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. viii. 
 
 The following is another letter written about the same 
 
 time: — 
 
 Monsieur Eugene Sismoxda, 
 
 assistant au Musee royal de Mineralogie. Turin. 
 
 Monsieur et tres hanorc collcgue, — De retour d'Angleterre apres 
 une absence de pres de quatre mois j'ai le plaisir de recevoir votre 
 aimable lettre. Je suis charm 6 d'entrer en relation directe avec vous, 
 qui par vos beaux travaux geologiques avez si puissament contribue 
 a l'avancement de la science. II y aura tout profit pour moi a sou- 
 tenir une correspondance suivie avec vous. J'accepte avec plaisir 
 votre proposition d'echange ; je puis vous remettre au moins 600 
 moules d'Echinides fossiles accompagnes d'un catalogue syste- 
 matique et d'une caracteristique des genres nouveaux que j'ai etablis. 
 Je recevrai volontiers en echange des coquilles, des Zoophites et des 
 Echinides de tous vos terrains dltalie, meme les especes les plus 
 communes. Je de'sire beaucoup obtenir des series d'exemplaires de 
 differents ages. 
 
 Dans des echanges de ce genre j'ai generalement demande un 
 fossile contre un moule a raison des frais considerables que leur 
 execution m'a occasionne, sans compter jamais rigoureusement, 
 comme cela convient entre gens qui doivent avoir en vue les interets 
 de la science plutot que la depense qui en resulte pour eux. Outre 
 ces moules d'oursins j'en possede beaucoup de ]\lollusques, de 
 Poissons, de Mamiferes et 5 a 600 especes de Mollusques des 
 terrains secondaires en nature, dont je puis disposer pour echanges. 
 C'est assez vous dire que j'ai d'amples materiaux pour des envois 
 considerables et j'attends seulement pour vous expedier une pre- 
 miere caisse qui peut etre prete dans trois jours, que vous vouliez bien 
 me dire quel nombre d'exemplaires vous avez de disponible, ou plu- 
 tot quelle etendue vous desirez que je donne a mon premier envoi. 
 
 Je suis tres Matte de la dedicace que vous me faites d'un de vos 
 Echinides et je me rejouis a l'avance d'apprendre a le connaitre. 
 
 Agreez, Monsieur, Tassurance de ma consideration, tres dis- 
 
 tinguee. 
 
 Ls. Agassiz. 
 Neuchatel en Suisse, 
 
 le 24 decembre, 1840. 
 
1841-42-] MONOGRAPHIE DES ECHINODERMES. 179 
 
 We have in these two letters a glimpse of Agassiz's 
 method of collecting specimens, making exchanges, and 
 disposing of his publications. 
 
 The success of the " Fossiles du terrain cretace du 
 Jura Neuchatelois," of the " Prodrome d'une Mono- 
 graphic des Echinodermes," and of "Echinodermes fos- 
 siles de la Suisse," all published at the expense of the 
 Societe des Sciences Naturelles de Neuchatel and of 
 the Societe Helvetique des Sciences Naturelles, led 
 Agassiz to undertake, at his own expense, the publica- 
 tion of " Monographies d'Echinodermes vivants et fos- 
 siles," with many beautifully executed plates. It was 
 an unfortunate undertaking, very expensive on account 
 of the great number of plates, and without proper pat- 
 ronage from naturalists to make it profitable. Only four 
 monographs or " livraisons " were issued between 1838 
 and 1842. The first, on " Salenies," 1838, shows good 
 work, and is very creditable in all respects, and worthy 
 of the name which signs it ; the second, on " Scutelles ' 
 (July, 1 841), although containing many new facts and 
 an interesting history of the progress of the natural 
 history of the echinoderms, besides twenty-seven most 
 exact and beautiful plates, did not attract much at- 
 tention; while the third " livraison," containing the 
 "Galerites" and " Dysaster " (1842), is by E. Desor. 
 Agassiz helped in the revision of the proof-sheets ; 
 but, on the whole, the work shows a noticeable inferi- 
 ority to all the previous publications on the echino- 
 derms. 
 
 The fourth "livraison' (1842), the manuscript of 
 which was written in German and translated into 
 
1S0 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. vill. 
 
 French, treats the anatomy of the genus Echinus, and is 
 by Professor G. Valentin of Berne ; and its nine plates, 
 several of them double, are remarkably well drawn by 
 Dickmann. After the issue of the fourth "livraison," the 
 publication was stopped and never resumed. This fine 
 work, forming a large 4to volume, is dedicated to " M. 
 Valenciennes, Professeur de Zoologie au Jardin des 
 Plantes et a M. Paul Deshayes, Professeur de Conchyli- 
 ologie a Paris." In this way Agassiz tried to conciliate 
 two naturalists, who had nothing in common except a 
 disagreement in regard to an appointment obtained by 
 pure favour for Valenciennes, against all justice and the 
 right claim of Deshayes. For, through the influence of 
 Humboldt and the help of Agassiz, Valenciennes was 
 elected professor of conchology and zoophytology at 
 the Jardin des Plantes, — a most unfortunate choice, for 
 he knew next to nothing of these two difficult branches 
 of invertebrate zoology, having only a knowledge of liv- 
 ing fishes, obtained as an assistant of George Cuvier ; 
 while Deshayes, on the other hand, was regarded by 
 every naturalist, not only in France, but also in other 
 countries, as the ablest conchologist of his time. 1 Agas- 
 siz, hoping to mend matters and to help in healing the 
 wound inflicted on Deshayes, conceived the strange 
 notion of uniting in a dedication the two names of 
 Valenciennes and Deshayes, placing Valenciennes 
 before Deshayes. He very well knew that he was 
 
 1 Thirty years later, in 1869, Deshayes was at last appointed Professor 
 of Conchology at the Jardin des Plantes, at the ripe old age of seventy- 
 two years, an act of justice due to M. V. Duruy, then Secretary of Public 
 Instruction. 
 
1841-42.] LETTER TO DESHA YES. 181 
 
 treading on dangerous ground, as the following letter 
 to M. Deshayes shows : — 
 
 Neuchatel, le 27 fevrier, 1839. 
 
 Monsieit?-, — Desirant vous donner un te'moignage public de ma 
 reconnaissance pour les communications importantes que vous 
 m'avez faites sur les oursins fossiles, j 1 ai pris la liberte de vous 
 dedier conjointment a M. Valenciennes a qui je dois egalement 
 des communications d'une haute valeur, Touvrage sur cette classe 
 d'animaux, dont je viens de publier la premiere livraison. 
 
 J'espere, Monsieur, que vous daignerez accepter cette marque de 
 mon estime et de mon amitie. La science vous doit de si importants 
 travaux, trop peu recompenses, dans Tatmosphere ou vous vivez, 
 pour que je ne puisse pas esperer trouver de la sympathie chez un 
 homme qui poursuit ces recherches avec un tel desinteressement. 
 La deuxieme livraison, qui est tres avancee, contiendra les Scutelles. 
 Je profiterai de toutes les occasions que j'aurai pour Paris pour vous 
 retourner vos exemplaires au fur et a mesure qu'ils seront dessines. 
 j'y joindrai les moules des especes que vous n"avez pas et si vous le 
 desirez de celles des votres que j'ai pu faire mouler sans risque de 
 les endommager. lis pourraient vous servir a faire des echanges. 
 Veuillez me dire si vous desirez que je vous en fasse couler des 
 epreuves 
 
 Je vous adresse egalement la premiere livraison encore inachevee 
 d'un ouvrage que je prepare depuis longtemps sur les Mollusques 
 fossiles de la Suisse principalement, dans lequel je me propose de 
 traiter aussi differentes questions generates de Conchyliologie et sur- 
 tout celle de la delimitation des genres et de Tanalogie des especes 
 fossiles avec les especes vivants. Quoiqu'envisageant, comme \ous 
 le savez ces questions un peu differemment de vous, la base sur 
 laquelle j'ai travaille n'en est pas moins la meme et e'est la un point 
 de ralliement infaillible Fetude consciencieuse et comparative des 
 faits. Qu'apres cela il me paraisse plus utile de grouper les esp^ - 
 d 7 apres leurs caracteres plus restreints en petites groupes. que de les 
 reunir d'apres des caracteres plus ge'ne'raux en grands genres. 1 "est 
 une question a. debattre ulte'rieuremcnt et le re'sultat auquel on 
 s'arretera ne changera en rien la valeur des observations spdciales, 
 
1 82 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. viii. 
 
 La definition et la circonscription des especes touche deja de plus pres 
 a I'importance actuelle que Ton attache a ce genre de travail. II me 
 parait a cet dgard que la facilite de distinguer telle ou telle serie de 
 formes diverses ne pent pas etre un motif absolu pour les reunir ou 
 les sdparer et qu'il importe de rassembler les materiaux les plus com- 
 plets sur la genealogie de chaque type avant de pouvoir se prononcer 
 (Tune maniere invariable. Cest ainsi que la possibilite de ratta- 
 cher a une souche primitive les generations actuelles souvent diverses 
 de telle ou telle espece fait que nous ne les se'parons pas comme autant 
 d'especes distinctes, bien que souvent les individus que nous reunis- 
 sons ainsi different d"avantage entre eux que ceux d'autres types que 
 nous separons a. cause de la fixite de leurs caracteres. Ces principes 
 de la zoologie actuelle me paraissent devoir influer ulterieurement 
 sur notre maniere d'envisager Fanalogie des especes fossiles avec 
 les vivantes. Je crois par exemple que s'il pouvait etre demontre 
 geologiquement que certaines especes fossiles que nous envisageons 
 comme identiques avec les vivantes, ont cesse d'exister dans des 
 circonstances telles qu'il serait impossible qu'elles aient pu se repro- 
 duire par voie de generation dans l'epoque suivante, il faudrait alors 
 envisager ces analogues d'une autre epoque comme des especes par- 
 ticulieres procreez dans d'autres temps alors meme que leur ressem- 
 blance exterieure rendrait leur distinction tres difficile. II me 
 semble qu'en pareil cas le fait que les extremes des varietes d'un 
 type fossile se lient aussi etroitement aux extremes d"un type 
 vivant que leurs varietes entr'elles n'emporte pas la necessite de 
 la reunion des deux types en une seule espece. Quoique cette 
 maniere de voir ne s'accorde pas en tous points avec certains prin- 
 cipes que vous avez etablis sur la determination des especes, ils ne 
 me paraissent infirmer en aucune facon Timportance des faits innom- 
 brables que vous avez receuillis sur Tanalogie des especes fossiles 
 avec les vivantes, puisque vous avez toujours signale les particu- 
 larites qui distinguent toutes les varietes que vous avez reunies 
 dans le meme type specifique. Je pense des lors que vous ne re- 
 pugnerez pas a. faire part vous meme occasionellement de ces obser- 
 vations a la Societe Geologique (de France). 
 
 La premiere livraison de mes " Etudes critiques " paraitra dans 
 le courant de l'ete. En parcourant ce que j'ai pu vous en envoyer 
 
1841-42-] LETTER TO DES HAYES. 183 
 
 des aujourcThui, vous remarquerez sans cloute que j'ai pris toutes les 
 precautions possibles pour eviter de multiplier les especes sans rai- 
 son ; ainsi pour les Trigonies j'ai repre'sente' une serie de tous les 
 ages de la Trigonia navis (du Lias Superieur de Gundershofen, 
 Haut Rhin, recueillis par Gressly) pour prouver que quelques 
 especes nouvelles que j'ai etablies n'en sont pas les jeunes. Quant 
 a la famille des Myes elle a eu des representants bien plus nom- 
 breux et plus varies dans les terrains jurassiques, qu'a des epoques 
 plus recentes, et la diversity des types que j'ai etudies m'a engage 
 a grouper des especes (qui cadraient fort mal dans les genres 
 admis maintenant) dans plusieurs genres nouveaux dont je donnerai 
 tres en detail les caracteres distinctifs en les comparant soit entr'eux, 
 soit avec des genres qui ont des representants maintenant. 
 
 Si votre Conchyliologie continue a paraitre regulierement j'at- 
 tendrai que vous ayez publie les Myes pour emettre ma Monographic. 
 Je suis enchante des deux livraisons qui ont deja paru. 
 
 Je vous adresse enfin les premieres planches d'un Memoire 1 que 
 je vais inserer pour paraitre incessamment dans le second volume des 
 Memoires de la Societe d'Histoire Naturelle de Neuchatel. Je 
 pense que cette publication sera utile pour la determination des 
 moules fossiles. Si vous desirez les avoir en platre, je vous les 
 enverrai, mais comme ils appartiennent a notre Musee, vous m'obli- 
 gerez de m'envoyer en echange de*s fossiles ou des coquilles 
 vivantes. Dans ce cas je vous indiquerai ce qui nous manque 
 surtout. 
 
 Agreez, Monsieur, Tassurance de mon parfait devouement. 
 
 Ls. Agasstz. 
 
 This is one of the most important scientific letters 
 written by Agassiz, showing the direction of his mind 
 and his preconceived ideas on a subject which he advo- 
 cated, more or less, during his whole life, in regard to 
 species and genera, and also the erroneous notion of 
 the confinement of species to each group of formations, 
 
 1 " Memoire sur les Moules de Mollusques vivans et fossiles, premiere 
 partie; Moule d'Acephales vivants." 410,1839. 
 
[84 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. viii. 
 
 against the plain facts brought forward by Deshayes, 
 demonstrating the passage of species from one group 
 to another, illustrated so vividly in the great Tertiary 
 epoch of the Paris basin. In palaeontology Agassiz was 
 an absolutist until the last two years of his life, when 
 lie abandoned the rigidity of his principles in his cele- 
 brated prophetic letter to Benjamin Pierce on the sup- 
 posed existence of Ammonites, Trilobites, and other 
 lost forms of marine animals at great depths. These 
 two errors are the most remarkable examples of the 
 excess of his imagination. 
 
 Another scientific letter, written at the same time to 
 Jules Thurmann, is too good not to be given in full. 
 
 Neuchatel, 12 fevrier, 1842. 
 Monsieur Jules Thurmann 
 a Porrentruy. 
 
 Monsieur, — Gressly m'a fait le plaisir de me communiquer la 
 lettre que vous lui avez adressee tout recemment. Je me rejouis 
 infiniment d'apprendre que vous vous etes remis avec ardeur a la 
 Geologic et que vous etudiez maintenant serieusement les - fossiles. 
 Je vous remercie infiniment pour ma part des detailes circonstancies 
 dans lesquels vous etes entre sur les oursins, et rien ne me serait 
 plus utile et agreable que de recevoir vos observations sur les autres 
 parties de mon travail. Soyez persuade, Monsieur, que j'apprends 
 bien davantage des remarques de ce genre, que les compliments 
 d'une banalite affligeante, que les auteurs s'adressent si souvent. Je 
 ne puis meme vous prouver l'importance que j 1 y attache, qu'en re- 
 pondant a vos remarques. 
 
 I ne chose m'a frappe, e'est que mes coupes generiques vous 
 aient satisfaits. A ce sujet, je suis de la part des Zoologistes en 
 bute a des reproches continuels ; on me repete sans cesse que je les 
 multiplie a plaisir. Quant a moi j'ai la conviction que Ton ne par- 
 vient bien a etudier les especes, qu'en les groupant dans des genres 
 
1841-42.] LETTER TO THURMANN. 185 
 
 aussi restraint que possible; sauf, peut-etre a en reunir plus tard 
 plusieurs sous un meme chef, si Ton decouvre des types interme'- 
 diaires. 
 
 Quant aux especes je partage pleinement les principes que vous 
 enoncez, je les professe hautement ; je dirai meme que ce sont ces 
 principes qui me dirigent dans mes etudes ; mais je differe surtout 
 de vous dans leur application. Ayant egard a ce qui a eu lieu dans 
 les autres branches de la science, lorsqu'elles etaient dans leur en- 
 fance, je cherche a. reunir le plus de materiaux possible, et apres 
 avoir compare exactement, je distingue et distingue, faisant valoir 
 les moindre differences que j'apercois, etablissant des especes 
 souvent d'aprcs un seul exemplaire imparfait, sauf a reunir, quand 
 on a rassemble des materiaux suffisants pour le faire a bon escient ; 
 c'est la marche que la science a suivie dans toute son histoire. Ce 
 travail de critique a ses inconvenients, je le sais ; il oblige de 
 revenir sur les memes materiaux a. plusieurs reprises ; mais il a ses 
 grands avantages, c'est de forcer a un examen scrupuleux, tous ceux 
 qui reunissent des materiaux nombreux sur une seule espece. 11 
 forcera les collecteurs a ne pas disseminer a. l'infini leurs exemplaires 
 et a. collecter des series et non pas des echantillons. Vous verrez 
 que toutes les fois qual irTa ete possible d'e'tudier des series d'exem- 
 plaires, j'en ai analyse toutes les formes, distingue des varietes 
 d'ages, de station, etc. Vous reconnoissez vous-meme, que nos 
 collections sont trop pauvres pour nous permettre de faire cela. pour 
 un grand nombre d'especes des a. present. Le terme desirable 
 n'est done pas encore a. notre portee, et voila pourquoi je procede si 
 difTeremment de la plupart de mes collegues dans ^application des 
 principes incontestables. Pour les memes raisons j'ai fiequemment 
 etabli des genres dont je n'ai longtemps connu quune seule espece. 
 
 Maintenant vous possedez des series d'especes dont je n"ai vu 
 jusqu*ici que des exemplaires isoles ; c'est une bonne trouvaille et 
 si vous voulez bien me les communiquer au complet, e'est-a-dire la 
 masse des bons exemplaires je serai le premier a supprimer eel les 
 de mes especes qui forment double emploi. Mais avouez, <|u'il etait 
 plus profitable a. la science, que e'e'tait du moins fixer les yeux ou 
 Tattention d'une maniere bien plus pressante sur ces oursins, en 
 etablissant le genre Pedina et en y distinguant plusieurs es 
 
1 86 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. viii. 
 
 qu'en les reunissant sous un seul nom dans le genre Echinus. Sup- 
 posons un instant, qu'au lieu de devoir les reunir, en partie du 
 moins, comme cela me parait probable, d'apres ce que vous ecrivez 
 a Gressly, les ayant d'abord reunis, quelqu'un eut trouve que Ton 
 confondait plusieurs especes sous le meme nom. La vraie difficulte 
 qui se serait alors presentee eut ete de savoir a laquelle, il faut con- 
 server le nom primitif ; puis si cette espece est etablie depuis long- 
 temps, s'assurer laquelle des deux est mentionnee dans les differents 
 auteurs ; puis effacer toutes les citations de localites deja mention- 
 nees, parce qu'on ne sait plus, quelle est celle qui provient de l'endroit 
 A. ou de l'endroit B., etc. Cest-a-dire que c'est a la crainte d^etablir 
 trop cVesfteces, sur des materiaux incomplets, qu'il faut attribuer tout 
 cet effroyable dedale de la synonymie, et des fausses citations de 
 gisements, qu'on ne peut eviter qu'en s'abstenant completement, ce 
 qui ne fait faire aucun progres, ou en distinguant et distinguant 
 toujours jusqu'a ce qu'on puisse reunir a. coup sur. 
 
 N'en n'a t'il pas ete ainsi de tous nos oiseaux aquatiques, dont 
 les jeunes et les vieux ont passes pour des especes distinctes, meme 
 aux yeux de Linnee? C'est cette maniere d'agir qui m'a conduit a 
 etablir bien des especes, qu'il faudra peut-etre supprimer un jour. 
 J'ajouterai encore que c'est faute de posseder moi-meme une grande 
 partie des objets que je decris, que je suis force de faire faire les 
 planches, pendant que ces objets sont a ma disposition et souvent 
 de les numeroter d'A. B. C. et de faire pire encore. Aussi si nous 
 nous voyons plus souvent, m'entendriez vous souvent repeter qu'il 
 ne faudrait jamais publier que la seconde edition de ses oeuvres et 
 toujours canceller la premiere apres en avoir fait part a. ses amis 
 seulement. Nous ne marcherons avec une entiere assurance en 
 paleontologie, que quand on possedera autant d'editions d'un genre 
 complet du Regne Animal, qu'il y a d'editions de " Cornelius 
 Nepos " ou de la grammaire latine de Broder, ou de tel dictionnaire 
 de poche. 
 
 Gressly, Desor et moi nous travaillons aussi assiduement que 
 possible a la paleontologie ; ces Messieurs vous ecrivent chacun de 
 leur cote ; j'ai voulu aussi vous donner un signe de vie, et j'espere 
 que nous n'en resterons pas la. Jent [l'editeur d'Agassiz a Soleure] 
 ne peut pas vous avoir adresse les planches de Myes, puisqu'il ne 
 
1841-42.] JAMES D. FORBES. 1S7 
 
 les a pas encore. Ce sera Gressly 011 moi qui vous les auront fait 
 
 parvenir, afin cTapprendre de vous, si vous aviez quelque chose 
 neuf dans ces genres. Vous m'obligerez infiniment en en faisant 
 une petite caisse et en me Padressant avec vos oursins. Nous 
 determinerons cela en commun, et Gressly ou Desor vous renverra 
 prochainement le tout. 
 
 Agreez, Monsieur, mes salutations tres empressees. 
 
 Ls. Agassiz. 
 
 Seldom has Agassiz written such an important scien- 
 tific letter, showing as it does his method of determining 
 species and establishing new genera. In it he anticipates 
 the criticism which has been made since, that he created 
 too many species ; for instance, of fossil fishes from the 
 JlyscJi 1 of Glaris, some of which were distorted by strong 
 lateral pressure. A larger number of specimens than 
 were then at his disposal have since proved his mistake. 
 
 At the meeting of the British Association at Glasgow 
 during September, 1840, James D. Forbes, professor of 
 natural philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, took 
 such an interest in all the communications made by 
 Agassiz on the glacial question and the glaciers, that 
 Agassiz very politely tendered him an invitation to visit 
 him the next summer at his " Hotel des Neuchatelois." 
 
 On the 8th of August, 1841, Agassiz, with his assist- 
 ants, again occupied their old and rather rough quarters 
 on the Aar glacier; and there Forbes, accompanied by 
 a Scotch friend, Mr. Heath, was received as a welcome 
 guest. Agassiz was delighted to have a physician so 
 celebrated as Forbes to examine his observations. He 
 showed him everything — all the experiments they were 
 
 1 A lithologic term used in German Switzerland to designate a series of 
 strata belonging to the Tertiary Eocene. 
 
1 88 LOUTS AGASSTZ. [chap. viii. 
 
 making in regard to temperature, progress of the mo- 
 raine, etc., often asking his opinion and advice. But 
 Forbes was as silent as a sphinx ; it was impossible 
 to draw from him a single remark or hint. This 
 impenetrability in a savant was new to Agassiz, who, 
 until then, had more or less easily charmed every scien- 
 tific man with whom he had come in contact. But 
 this time he had found one who would not yield to 
 his ingenuousness. During the three weeks spent by 
 Forbes at the " Hotel des Neuchatelois," he observed 
 everything around him, but said absolutely nothing, 
 even as regards his impressions. Agassiz's desire to 
 study the structure of glaciers led him to bore in the 
 glacier a hole 140 feet deep ; and he was also lowered, 
 supported simply by a rope, to a depth of 120 feet, 
 into an old "moulin" or well, to see how far through 
 the glaciers the laminated structure extended. This 
 veined structure was the only point referred to by 
 Forbes during his stay at the " Hotel des Neuchate- 
 lois." It had been observed previously by David 
 Brewster, Hugi, Bishop Rendu, Guyot, and Agassiz ; 
 but Forbes afterward claimed that it was he who first 
 called Agassiz's " attention to the fact that the ice of 
 glaciers is composed of vertical laminae, constituting a 
 true ribboned structure," * and raised a controversy, of 
 which we shall speak farther on. 
 
 Several peaks were ascended by Agassiz during 
 Forbes's stay, among them the summit of the Ewig- 
 schneehorn ; with a visit to the Gauli glacier, a walk 
 over the " mer de glace de Viesch," and, finally, an 
 
 1 "Edinburgh Philosophical Journal," January, 1842. 
 
1841-42.] ASCENT OF THE JUNGFRAU. 189 
 
 ascent of the Jungfrau. Until then no tourist had suc- 
 ceeded in reaching the top of the Jungfrau. During 
 the last two years Agassiz had often discussed with his 
 favourite guide, Jacob Leuthold, the means of reaching 
 that virgin peak, the great landmark of the Bernese 
 Oberland. 1 On the 27th of August, Agassiz with 
 Forbes, Heath, Desor, and two others, and six guides, 
 left the Grimsel at four o'clock in the morning, arriving 
 at six o'clock p.m. at the Meril Chalets, near the lake, 
 where they were well received by the herders, who were 
 rather astonished at the arrival of such a large party. 
 
 Next morning, at five o'clock, they left Meril, aiming 
 for the Aletsch glacier ; after a fatiguing walk on rather 
 slippery ground, among " crevasses " and over snow 
 fields, the party reached the base of the last slope at 
 three o'clock p.m. Four of the party had been forced 
 by fatigue or giddiness to remain behind ; but the other 
 eight — one after another in turn — gained the summit, 
 which is only two feet long by a foot and a half broad. 
 Agassiz was the first, then Desor, Forbes behind, and a 
 French tourist, M. Duchatelier of Nantes, fourth. At 
 four o'clock the descent began ; and they arrived all safe 
 at half-past eleven p.m. at the Meril Chalets. Three 
 days later Agassiz was again at the " Hotel des Neucha- 
 telois," where he found his artist-friend, Burkhardt, 
 and his assistant, Charles Girard, anxiously awaiting his 
 return. 
 
 1 The two brothers, Rudolph and Jerome Meyer of Aarau, in l8ll and 
 181 2, made two ascents of the Jungfrau with success, although the fact is 
 contested by the mountaineers of the country. At all events, a part 
 guides, with J. Baumann as chief, succeeded in reaching the summit on the 
 
 8th of September, 1828. 
 
190 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. viii. 
 
 During the five weeks' sojourn of Agassiz and his 
 friends on the glacier of the Aar, from the 8th of 
 August to the ioth of September, 1841, many visitors 
 were received besides Forbes. The title of " Hotel des 
 Neuchatelois" deceived several tourists, who, hearing 
 of it at the Grimsel Hospice, came up expecting to find 
 some establishment like the " Culm Hotel ' on the 
 Rigi. Even a Scotch lady, Mrs. Covan of Edinburgh, 
 in returning from an ascent of the Finsteraarhorn, 
 stopped and was entertained as well as it was possible 
 by Agassiz. Most of these visitors were obliged to 
 return to the Grimsel to find lodging, or to be contented 
 with a corner in the guide's cabin. The hospitality of 
 the " Hotel des Neuchatelois" was reserved for savants 
 or personal friends, such as General de Pfuel, the Prus- 
 sian governor of Neuchatel, Lord Enniskillen of Ireland, 
 the two de Rougemont of Neuchatel, the geologists, 
 Studer and Escher von der Linth, the meteorologist and 
 botanist, Charles Martins, Bravais, Guyot, etc. However, 
 the solidity of the block forming the roof was begin- 
 ning to awaken suspicion ; cracks had become alarm- 
 ingly numerous, and when it rained, the interior of the 
 hotel was almost a pond, with water running in every 
 direction. It was only a question of time when the 
 enormous block would break in pieces, and it was also 
 feared that a sudden move of the glaciers might hasten 
 the catastrophe. So every evening before retiring one 
 of the party used to make the round of the cabin to 
 see that all was right. Although not in immediate 
 danger, it was resolved to abandon the " Hotel des 
 Xeuchatelois " and to erect next year a new cabin ; not, 
 
1841-42.] NEUCHATEL ACADEMY. 191 
 
 as formerly, on the glacier, but on firm ground, and 
 hence less exposed to dangerous accidents. 
 
 Forbes, after his return from the ascent of the Jung- 
 frau, visited parts of the Valai's and Chamounix, and by 
 the middle of September arrived at Neuchatel. His 
 reception by Agassiz was most cordial ; and Agassiz's 
 letter introducing Forbes to his good friend, Celestin 
 Nicolet, may be quoted as an evidence of his solicitude 
 to help him in every way. 
 
 Neuchatel, le 20 septembre, 1841. 
 
 Mon cher ami Nicolet. — Cest M. le Professeur Forbes qui vous 
 remettra ces lignes et que je vous recommande tout particulierement 
 en vous priant de lui faire voir ce que vous avez d'interessant a la 
 Chaux-de-Fonds. en fait de Sciences et d'Industrie. Je suis sure que 
 vous aurez beaucoup de plaisir a faire la connoissance d\m homme 
 aussi haut place dans le monde savant que M. Forbes. 
 
 Venez bientot causer un pen plus intimement avec nous de tout 
 ce que nous avons vu dans les Alpes ; plus vite et mieux. 
 
 Tout a vous 
 
 Ls. Agassiz. 
 
 Although the Neuchatel Academy was founded in 
 1838, the public inauguration of the new institution was 
 delayed until the 18th of November, 1841. Agassiz on 
 that occasion, wearing the cross of the Red Eagle of 
 Prussia, delivered an address, " De la Succession et du 
 developpement des etres organises a la surface du globe 
 terrestre dans les differents ages de la nature," in 
 which he says, " Si le cours des astres ne nous pr^sente 
 aucune variation, si l'ordre des saisons est immuable, si 
 la reproduction des especes s'opere toujours de la m^me 
 maniere, il est evident que le cours de ces phenomenes 
 
192 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. viii. 
 
 est invariablement regie et suit des lois naturelles, inde- 
 pendantes de l'influence creatrice qui les a etablies." 
 
 Objections were raised by the rector of the academy 
 and some of the professors ; and after discussion, it was 
 resolved that two hundred separate copies of Agassiz's 
 address should be printed for his own use, and four 
 hundred copies of the three speeches delivered at the 
 inauguration, as part of the programme and annual 
 report of the academy. The pietist party was very 
 strong then in Neuchatel, and several sentences in 
 Agassiz's address were considered as anti-orthodox and 
 antagonistic to the prevailing creed of the Neuchatel 
 ministers. The following letter from Agassiz to the rec- 
 tor shows the intensity of the commotion produced : — 
 
 Neuchatel, 14 decembre, 1841. 
 
 Mon cher collegue [le recteur Petavel]. — Considerez, je vous 
 prie, que mon discours s'adresse au public de PAcademie et que peu 
 m'importe le jugement de ceux qui sont incompetents ou incapables. 
 Que serait notre Academie si elle devait se mettre a la hauteur de 
 tous ceux qui en veulent ? Vous auriez pu voir vendredi que je fais 
 de vos reclamations une affaire de principes et que je suis parfaite- 
 ment decide a ne pas faire la moindre concession, parce que j'y 
 verrais une atteinte fataie a la liberte d'enseignement et parce que 
 je tiens a ce que notre Academie aie de la tenue et qu'un de ses 
 membres ne dise pas blanc aujourd'hui et noir demain. Ne con- 
 fondez pas votre position avec la mienne ; vous deviez parler au 
 nom du corps academique et e'est ce qui nous donnait a tous le 
 droit d'exiger que vous parleriez dans tel ou tel sens, dans celui de 
 la majoritd, sauf a vous de donner votre demission comme Recteur, 
 s'il ne vous convenait pas d'etre l'organe de notre pensee : Vous ne 
 faites pas assez cette distinction. J'ai parle pour moi et dans 
 linteret de notre Academie ; je ne souffrirais pas la moindre critique 
 de ce que j'ai fait et dit ; je vous le repete sans la moindre ani- 
 
1841-42.] LETTER TO THE RECTOR. 193 
 
 mosite ; je dirai meme que je le fais comme si j'etais tout a fait 
 etranger a la discussion et uniquement parce que vous me demandez 
 comme Recteur : quel bien je pense que- cela fera a rAcadcmie. et 
 parce que me faisant le defenseur de cette independance de Tesprit, 
 sans laquelle rien ne grand ne peut prosperer, je dois vous rappeler 
 que le Recteur est tenu de rester etranger a tout cela. S"il en etait 
 autrement, ce seraient des antecddents qui donneraient acces au 
 coeur meme de TAcademie a des influences etrangeres, que je ferai 
 toujours tous mes efforts d'en bannir et auxquelles il faut fermer la 
 bouche des le commencement pour qu'elles ne rciterent pas Ieurs 
 tentatives. Je vous Pai dit dans mon discours et je vous le re pete 
 ici : il est peu de grandes verites qui n'aient ete traitees de chimeres 
 et de blasphemes, avant qu'elles fussent demontrees. Heureuse- 
 ment que les temps de Galilee n'existent plus ; mais aussi y a-t-il 
 bien moins de merite qu'alors a ne pas composer avec les preten- 
 tions des Ministres de TEglise, et ce n'est certes pas une couronne 
 de martyr que j'espere conquerir. Je dis <*de TEglise," et par la 
 j'entends les ministres de tons les cultes, qu'ils soient protestants, 
 catholiques, juifs ou mahometans, qui ne venlent faire de firogrbs en 
 rien. Notez bien que je ne vous dis pas " de la Religion." N^ubliez 
 pas que mes doctrines ne peuvent porter d'atteinte qu'a. Tenseigne- 
 ment des docteurs de PEglise et nullement aux verites de la Religion. 
 
 J'en reviens a mon discours. Ennuye de toutes ces discussions, 
 je le livrerai aujourd"hui a. Wolfrath (rimprimeur) sans notes, tel 
 que je l'ai lu, sans y changer quoique ce soit. Si on ne me laisse pas 
 tranquille a ce sujet, ce sera ma meilleur defense. 
 
 Agreez, mon cher collegue, mes salutations bien empresse'es ; 
 
 croyez que j'estime votre zele pour les convictions que vous pro- 
 
 fessez maintenant. Soyez persuade que jamais je ne chercherai de 
 
 discuter sur ces matieres, que je desire avant tout vivre en paix avec 
 
 mes convictions et pouvoir poursuivre sans relache mes recherch 
 
 ne reclamant en leur faveur que la meme tolerance que jc concede 
 
 a tout le monde. 
 
 Ls. Agassiz. 
 
 This is the most decisive letter ever written by 
 Agassiz. At that time Neuchatel was entirely in the 
 
 o 
 
i 9 4 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. viii. 
 
 hands of the " Ministres de l'Eglise"; and the Pietists 
 and even the " Momiers " largely controlled Neuchatel 
 society. Some of Agassiz's most intimate friends, like 
 Arnold Guyot, were among the leaders of the Pietists, 
 and it required considerable moral courage to resist the 
 anti-liberal pressure exerted by the sect against all lib- 
 eral, even scientific ideas. This controversy is the best 
 answer to the attacks of those who have pretended that 
 Agassiz came under the influence of the Methodists in 
 America. Agassiz, on the contrary, was most liberal 
 in religion, and always took care never to confuse 
 science with religion. All his life he kept free of the 
 " Ministres de l'Eglise," both in Europe and in Amer- 
 ica. To tell the truth, he never liked " ministers," to 
 whatever sect they might belong. To finish this inci- 
 dent, Agassiz was appointed rector of the Neuchatel 
 Academy for the year 1 842-1 843 ; and in his " Discours 
 du Nouvel-An," the 1st of January, 1843, he said : — 
 
 Une institution aussi jeune que notre Academie a surtout besoin 
 de Tappui d'un monarque qui veille avec une si constante sollicitude 
 aux inte'rets de la science. Deja avant son avenement au trone 
 Frederic-Guillaume IV etait le protecteur le plus zele des sciences 
 en Prusse, et sous son regne les institutions scientifiques du royaume 
 brillent dim nouvel eclat, du surtout a. l'empressement avec lequel 
 le roi a appele dans ses Etats les hommes les plus eminents de TAlle- 
 magne dans le domaine de la philosophic, des sciences, du droit 
 et des lettres. Tout recemment encore, il a inaugure Toeuvre d'une 
 grande reconciliation religieuse. Cest lui qui a brise de vielles 
 entraves qui pourraient gener un nouvel elan de Tintelligence pour 
 agrandir les limites d'une libre expression de la pensee, tout en la 
 contenant dans de sages bornes. 1 
 
 1 " La premiere Academie de Neuchatel," par Alphonse Petitpierre, 
 pp. 128-129, Neuchatel, 1889. 
 
1841-42.] CONTROVERSY WITH J. D. FORRES. 195 
 
 In his agenda, Agassiz wrote the same day : " Pre- 
 sents comme Recteur les hommages du corps acadc- 
 mique au Roi. La reponse du President du Conseil 
 d'Etat me fait supposer que les paroles moderees que 
 j'ai prononcees ont deplu." After a second thought, and 
 on the advice of the governor, General de Pfuel, repre- 
 senting the king of Prussia, the matter was dropped. 
 
 The year 1842 began with a difficulty with James 
 Forbes, ended with one with Karl Schimper, with the 
 erection of a new and rather too costly establishment 
 at the glacier of the Aar as an interlude, — three things 
 which might have been avoided to the advantage of 
 Agassiz. On the 26th of February his secretary, who 
 by this time had become hardly inferior to Agassiz, 
 wrote a rather sharp and irritating letter to Forbes, 
 relating to the question of priority in the discovery of 
 the laminated structure of the glacier. Desor, by incli- 
 nation and education, was always ready for a controversy 
 or a discussion on any point scientific, political, or relig- 
 ious. He had learned enough of law, when a student, to 
 assimilate the spirit of the advocate. He became a 
 naturalist by accident, and as a means of supporting 
 himself. But his proper sphere was politics; and as 
 soon as he became unexpectedly rich, he devoted almi 
 all his time to politics; as his biographer says: "lie was 
 persuaded, at the end of his life, that on his shoulders 
 rested the welfare of the Swiss Confederacy, of the 
 Neuchatel Canton, and of the federal Polytechnicum. 
 He passed all his time in writing polemic articles in 
 newspapers, compromised himself in petty personal dis- 
 cussions, and founded a newspaper to advocate and 
 
1 96 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. viii. 
 
 maintain his ideas and regain his political position, 
 promptly lost by his own fault. In the end, his news- 
 paper was reduced to only one hundred subscribers; and 
 the fatigues he incurred to maintain his political views 
 in a great measure brought on the fatal illness which 
 carried him off at Nice, the 23d of February, 1882." 
 
 The beginning of the controversy with Forbes is 
 recorded in the following letter from Agassiz, addressed 
 to Mr. Murray's son in London, who was the editor of 
 the "Annals and Magazine of Natural History." 
 
 Neuchatel, 13 fevrier, 1842. 
 
 D'apres votre lettre je presume que c'est Forbes qui vous a offert 
 un article sur les glaciers ; si cest lui ce serait une raison de plus pour 
 moi de vous prier d'attendre mes notes, car je viens de recevoir une 
 notice de lui inseree dans le Journal de Jameson(Ediuourg/i New 
 Philosopliical Journal) qui me parait la plus complete indiscretion 
 dont on puisse se rendre coupable envers un ami. Mr. Forbes a 
 mon invitation est venu passer trois semaines dans la cabane que 
 j'avais fait etablir sur le glacier de TAar, je lui ai fait voir tout ce 
 que la glacier offre d'interessant, toutes les recherches ont ete sui- 
 vies sous ses yeux. Des le premier jour je lui ai meme annonce 
 que Tun des points que je me proposais specialement d'etudier etait 
 la structure intime du glacier et particulierement les apparences 
 rubannees du glacier que j'avais a. peine mentionnees dans mon 
 ouvrage ("Etudes sur les Glaciers"), p. 121, en en decrivant 
 l'aspect exterieur, parce que depuis 1838 ou je les avais pour la 
 premiere fois remarquees sur la mer de glace de Chamounix je 
 n'etais point encore parvenu a en suivre tous les details, ce phe- 
 nomene n^tant pas toujours egalement distinct. Comme cette 
 annee il a ete facile de Tobserver, nous en avons fait une etude 
 detaillee et des les 3 octobre, 1841, j'en donnai la description a 
 M. de Humboldt, alors a Paris, qui en fit part a PAcademie (des 
 Sciences de Tlnstitut de France), et voila qu'en decembre {Edin- 
 burgh New PJiilosophical Journal, January, 1842), Mr. Forbes en 
 
1841-42.] LETTER TO MR. MURRAY'S SON. 197 
 
 fait part a 1' Academic d'Edinburgh en s'cn appropriant la decou- 
 verte et en poussant I'impudence jusqu'a dire qu'il fut surpris en 
 visitant le glacier de PAar de voir en me parlant de ce phenomene 
 que je ne le connaissais pas. Veuillez a ce sujet comparer la page 
 121 de mon livre. II faut absolument que je fasse connaitre ces 
 faits pour ne pas paraitre plus tard plagiaire dans mes propres 
 observations, et je vous prie de communiquer le contenu de cette 
 lettre a tous ceux de mes amis que vous connoissez et que cela 
 peut interesser. Ceci est une raison de plus pour activer la redaction 
 de mes observations sur les glaciers, et je compte que votre sentiment 
 de justice vous engagera a les attendre plutot que d'accepter quel que 
 fausse monnaie. Je vous prie cependant de ne pas faire imprimer 
 ceci parce que je compte faire moi-meme la lecon a Mr. Forbes. 
 
 Je serais moins surpris de ce que vient de faire Forbes, si lorsque 
 nous etions ensemble et que je le priais de contribuer a faire con- 
 naitre avec moi les glaciers en pretant a. cette question 1'appui du 
 nom d'un physicien justement estime dans le monde savant, il s'y 
 etait continuellement refuse, en repetant qu'il n'avait aucune opinion 
 sur ce sujet, qu'il avait voulu seulement apprendre a les connaitre 
 en venant les etudier avec moi et qu'il se garderait bien de rien 
 publier sur une matiere dans laquelle il lui restait plus que des 
 doutes J'etais bien loin de presumer que sous cette reserve se 
 cachait Tintention de s'approprier les observations les plus pre- 
 cieuses de cette campagne. 
 
 Mr. Forbes a soin de dire que c'est dans ma societe et celle de 
 Mr. Heath de Cambridge quHl a sejourne trois semaines sur le 
 glacier. Pour etre vrai il aurait du dire que j'avais fait etablir la 
 haut un appareil de forage desservi par cinq ou six horn mes y com- 
 pris un maitre foreur, que je mMtais fait accompagner d'un peintre 
 qui a dessine pour moi tous les accidents du glacier dont quelqi 
 uns ont etc copies par Mr. Forbes; que deux de mes amis. M. le 
 Docteur Vogt m'aidait dans les recherches microscopiques et M. 
 Desor dans celles concernant la geologie ; e'etait tout un e*tablisse- 
 ment que Mr. Forbes s'appropie gratuitement par un prdtentieux 
 our. Qu'en serait-il si de leur cote les autres savants MM. Studer, 
 Escher, Martins, etc., qui sont venus nous visiter et passer quelqi 
 jours avec nous, en faisaient autant? 
 
i 9 S LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. viii. 
 
 Agassiz took the side of his secretary, and published, 
 on the 2 1 st of April, 1842, a pamphlet of ten octavo 
 pages, without title, but which may be called, " A reply 
 to Mr. James D. Forbes on the laminated structure of 
 glaciers." The paper, although "privately distrib- 
 uted," was circulated largely among Agassiz's friends 
 to the number of five hundred copies. It began with 
 a reprint of a letter to M. Desor, under the date of 
 nth March, 1842, published by Forbes, with the 
 remark : " The following letter from Professor Forbes 
 to M. Desor of Neuchatel was written in answer to one 
 from the latter to the former, in which Professor Forbes 
 is charged with having, in a paper on the structure of 
 the ice of glaciers . . . assumed as his own a discovery 
 previously well known to M. Agassiz and his friends. 
 It appears that this injurious assertion has been pretty 
 extensively circulated through private channels, and; in 
 consequence, Professor Forbes has been advised by his 
 friends to make his denial equally known." The asser- 
 tion that Desor's written letter " has been pretty exten- 
 sively circulated through private channels " involved 
 a gratuitous supposition without foundation; the letter 
 was not printed, and neither Agassiz nor Desor had 
 even kept a copy of it. Forbes's printed letter, on 
 the contrary, was largely circulated, although no copy 
 was addressed to Agassiz ; and Agassiz was obliged to 
 make use of the "Private copy for Mr. Guyot" in 
 order to have it reprinted in his pamphlet. If the 
 " confidential adviser ' of Agassiz, as Forbes calls 
 Desor, erred in writing to Forbes in a rather surly 
 tone, Forbes's letter is much more objectionable. In it 
 
1841-42.] CONTROVERSY WITH 7. D. FORBES. 199 
 
 he calls to his help Studer, who was always only too 
 ready to join in a crusade against intruders on his 
 geological preserve of the Bernese Oberland. Forbes 
 seems rather anxious not to appear to have studied " in 
 the school of Agassiz " ; but to show that the fact of 
 the structure of the ice described in his notice was 
 unknown to Agassiz, de Charpentier, and other writers. 
 His remarks about " studying in a school ' are childish 
 in the extreme, and his knowledge of other works on 
 the structure of the ice was certainly limited ; for Hugi, 
 Rendu, and before them David Brewster of Edinburgh, 
 had observed the veined structure. 
 
 Agassiz's answer, dated the 29th of March, 1842, 
 gives the whole story of the relations between him and 
 Forbes. There is no doubt that Agassiz and every one 
 who met Forbes under the auspices of Agassiz, both 
 at the " Hotel des Neuchatelois ' and at Neuchatel, 
 did everything possible to help Forbes, and were ex- 
 tremely kind and courteous to him ; while, on his part, 
 Forbes was austere to an extent seldom seen, even 
 among Englishmen. The impression he made when in 
 Switzerland was decidedly unfavourable, except in the 
 case of a single person, Professor Bernard Studer, to 
 whom he afterward dedicated his book, ''Travels through 
 the Alps of Savoy," etc., 1843. It was wrong on his 
 part to accept the hospitality of Agassiz, and then to 
 act as if he had met him in a hotel. He was con- 
 stantly on his guard not to show any mark of assent, or 
 to say anything which might be useful for future obsen 
 tions. His great reserve puzzled everybody ; and when 
 he left, there was a general feeling of relief. Through- 
 
200 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. viii. 
 
 out his stay the relations were never cordial. He 
 personified the celebrated type of Englishmen so well 
 described and caricatured by Topffer, in his "Nouvelles 
 Genevoises," " Les deux-Scheidegg " : "Je defende vos 
 de paaler a moa, quand je dise rien a vos." A true no! 
 no ! : tall, thin, dry, haughty, and extremely egotistical. 
 
 Agassiz put forward the doubtful claim of Arnold 
 Guyot to priority in the discovery of ribboned structure, 
 noted by Hugi as far back as 1830. It would have 
 been better had no attention been paid to Forbes's 
 paper, which was written in bad taste and against all 
 the rules of courtesy between savants. 
 
 The only person who obtained any benefit from this 
 uncalled-for dispute was Desor, whose name, until then 
 entirely unknown in England and on the continent, 
 except in Switzerland, became conspicuous as the " con- 
 fidential adviser" of Agassiz. 
 
 All friendly relations between Agassiz and Forbes 
 ended with the following letter addressed by Agassiz 
 to Forbes, then in a hotel at Neuchatel : — 
 
 Le 12 Juin, 1842. 
 
 Monsieur, — Je viens de recevoir la brochure que vous m'avez 
 fait l'honneur de nvadresser et pour laquelle je vous prie d'agreer 
 mes remerciements. Je regrette que vous rfayez pas encore recu 
 le rccit de notre course a la Jungfrau que M. Desor vous a adresse 
 il y a plusieurs mois, si j'en avais encore un exemplaire a ma dis- 
 position je vous l'adresserais, afin que vous puissiez en prendre 
 connoissance. 
 
 1 Rudolph Topffer in his novel " Le Col d'Anterne " gives, as a type of 
 a well-bred Englishman, a tourist set in front of the Mont-Blanc, who 
 disclaimed to answer any of the numerous and polite questions asked by 
 Topffer, except by the two words, No ! no ! and Ui ! ui ! 
 
1841-42-] LETTER TO J. D. FORBES. 
 
 N'ayant recu aucune response aux deux dernieres Lettres que j'ai 
 eu Thonneur de vous adresser et apres la rdponse que vous avez faite 
 a ma precedente, en livrant au public des remarques qui n'allaient 
 qu'a votre adresse, je ne concois pas quelle espece de relations per- 
 sonnelles vous pouvez rechercher avec moi. Celles que j'aurais pu 
 desirer, vous les avez rendues impossibles ; et je ne saurais accepter 
 les froides civilites d'une personne en qui j'avais vu un ami. Cela 
 ne m'empechera pas de rendre pleine et entiere justice a celles de 
 vos publications qui tiennent de loin ou de pros aux recherches 
 scientifiques que je poursuis. 
 
 Agrc'ez, Monsieur, etc., 
 
 Louis Agassiz. 
 
 It would have been wiser on the part of Agassiz and 
 more profitable if, after his ascent of the Jungfrau and 
 his two "sejours" at the "Hotel des Neuchatelois " in 
 1840 and 1 84 1, he had let the glacial question take care 
 of itself. The impulse he had given was quite sufficient 
 to assure his reputation as one of the first and most 
 successful workers ; and his place, after Venetz and de 
 Charpentier, was recognized as undisputed by all those 
 who had studied glaciers and the glacial age. 
 
 Frightened at the constant increase of expenses, his 
 Swiss and German families made remonstrances, and 
 were absolutely opposed to a new establishment at the 
 glacier of the Aar, to replace the " Hotel des Neucha- 
 telois," which had gone to pieces during the winter, 
 according to a report just received from the Grimsel. 
 Agassiz's best scientific friends, with Humboldt at their 
 head, hinted that, after all, his works on fishes furnished 
 his best claim to reputation and celebrity. In a previ- 
 ous letter, dated Berlin, 17th of June, 1838, Humboldt, 
 in a friendly way, had told him that he had never had 
 
202 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. viii. 
 
 a secretary, or even a copyist, preferring to do all his 
 writing, and expressing his" fear when he learned that 
 he had nine assistants in his employ, adding humor- 
 ously, " I am sure that there must be some gold some- 
 where in your polished rocks. I should like to know 
 your secret how to work so profitably and so quickly all 
 these mines." Humboldt repeated his friendly advice 
 during the summer of 1842, saying plainly that he, the 
 man of the equinoctial region, was frightened by the 
 Eiszcit and the terrible ice cap. But all this was in 
 vain. Agassiz had an answer for every objection ; and 
 all that even his alarmed mother could obtain was a 
 promise that he would not make any more ascents of 
 inaccessible peaks, and be lowered again into hell, — 
 "descente aux enfers," as his descent into the glacier 
 well was familiarly called. 
 
 Arrived at the Grimsel, the 7th of July, 1842, Agassiz, 
 with his numerous assistants, at once began observations 
 and excursions, first to the Siedelhorn, and after that to 
 the glacier of the Rhone. The troglodytic habitation 
 under the immense block, having become unsafe, it was 
 replaced by a long tent, divided into three compart- 
 ments, used as laboratory and dining-room, sleeping- 
 room, and dormitory for the workmen. The form of 
 the tent — twenty metres long, four metres broad, and 
 five metres high — recalled a Noah's ark, and was 
 therefore christened "the Ark," 1 to distinguish it from 
 the " Hotel des Neuchatelois," which was now used as a 
 kitchen. The old cabin of the guides served as a stable 
 
 1 The old name of "Hotel des Neuchatelois," however, continued in 
 use; ami the archaic word "Ark " was dropped before the summer was over. 
 
1841-42.] STAY AT THE GLACIER OE THE AAR. 203 
 
 for ten goats; and the establishment, as a whole, was a 
 great improvement on the old one. Besides being built 
 on the solid ground and not on the moving median 
 moraine, it afforded a shelter, beneath which they could 
 work whenever the rain obliged them to keep in doors. 
 On the 10th of July it was ready for occupancy; and 
 the same night Agassiz, Wild, Vogt, Nicolet, Desor, 
 Burkhardt, and Girard slept under the canvas-covered 
 cabin. A new member was added to the usual staff of 
 Agassiz, — M. Wild of Zurich, who had been engaged 
 by Agassiz as a topographical engineer, to survey and 
 make a trigonometric plan of the Aar glacier. To be 
 sure, the king of Prussia, on the recommendation of 
 Humboldt, had granted nearly a thousand dollars for 
 the continuance of Agassiz's glacial work ; but this 
 royal gift was soon expended, and before the campaign 
 of 1842 was over, Agassiz was more deeply in debt 
 than ever ; for with him a gift, however large and 
 important, was only an occasion to expend twice and 
 three times more than he had received. 
 
 The stay at the glacier extended from the beginning 
 of July until the middle of September, with numerous 
 excursions, one as far as Altorf to attend the meeting 
 of the Helvetic Society of Natural Sciences. Escher 
 de la Linth and Ferdinand Keller (the same who 
 twelve years after made the first discovery of the 
 lacustrine habitation of prehistoric man) were among 
 the guests who helped to make observations and experi- 
 ments on the glacier. Numerous other guests came, 
 but only as visitors and spectators. Investigations wei 
 made in regard to infiltration, lamellar structure, strati- 
 
204 LOUrS AGASSIZ. [chap. viii. 
 
 fication of the glacier, the purity and composition of 
 the ice, the "crevasses," the temperature, the motion 
 of the glacier, the ablation, and the neve. Agassiz had 
 resolved to embody in a large publication, in three 
 parts, everything relating to the glacial system. The 
 first part, the only one ever published, was entitled 
 " Nouvelles etudes et experiences sur les . glaciers 
 actuels, leur structure, leur progression, et leur action 
 physique sur le sol," and was accompanied by a beau- 
 tiful folio atlas, containing three maps and nine plates 
 (Paris, 1847). The second part was to be on the 
 " Alpine erratics," by Guyot. It was never written, 
 only a few general conclusions being published, without 
 maps of any sort. It is to be regretted, for Guyot had 
 prepared a map showing the distribution of the Alpine 
 boulders, which had not been published. However, a 
 great part of it — more than two-thirds at least — was 
 anticipated by the issue, in 1845, at Winterthur, of an 
 anonymous map of the old glaciers of the Swiss Alps, 
 showing the extent of the ancient glaciers of the Arve, 
 Rhone, Aar, Reuss, Linth, and Rhine, with their lateral 
 and frontal moraines. This map is entitled " Verbrei- 
 tungsweise der Alpen-ftindlinge," and its author is the 
 modest and very able geologist, Arnold Escher von der 
 Linth. Very likely the publication of this map dis- 
 couraged Guyot, who was always extremely slow and 
 timid ; and he resolved to publish neither the volume 
 advertised nor his map. As to the third and final part, 
 by Desor, treating of erratic phenomena outside of 
 Switzerland, it remained in the stage of contemplation, 
 and was never begun. 
 
1841-42.] JOHN TYNDALL. 205 
 
 Agassiz and all his collaborators and friends certainly 
 worked hard and with a determination to penetrate all 
 the secrets of the glaciers, and some of their observa- 
 tions and experiments are excellent and valuable ; but it 
 is no injustice to any of them to say that they were not 
 sufficiently equipped and prepared for the work they 
 had rather rashly undertaken. Devotion to progress of 
 science was not sufficient ; something more was required. 
 De Charpentier and Bishop Rendu had already said all 
 that could be expected from men not trained as physi- 
 cists. Agassiz added very little, if any, to their work. 
 What was wanted was a great physicist, to solve the 
 problem of glaciers. James D. Forbes proved unequal 
 to the task ; and it was reserved for John Tyndall, the 
 great pupil and successor of Faraday, as the discoverer 
 of " radiant heat," to explain fully the origin of glaciers, 
 the pressure theory, regelation, crystallization and inter- 
 nal liquefaction, the veined structure ; in fact, all the 
 mechanism of glaciers. The principles set forth in 
 Tyndall's "The Glaciers of the Alps" (London, i860), 
 come next to the great discoveries of Venetz and de 
 Charpentier, and to Agassiz's Ice-age. The four com- 
 plete the survey of the subject. 
 
 In November, 1842, Agassiz, losing patience with the 
 constant attacks in German newspapers directed against 
 him by his formerly intimate friend, Dr. Karl Schimper, 
 published a pamphlet entitled " Erwiederung auf Dr. 
 Karl Schimper's Angriffe," four-page quarto, for pri- 
 vate circulation, though it was freely distributed, more 
 especially in Germany and Switzerland. It would have 
 been better Agassiz had ignored these attacks ; but 
 
2 o6 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. viii. 
 
 urged on, he says, by many friends, and I may add by 
 the one called by Forbes " his confidential adviser," he 
 wrote his " Reply to Dr. Karl Schimper's Attacks." In 
 it, interesting details of their life as students, and of the 
 sort of community existing at that time between Alexan- 
 der Braun, the two Schimper brothers, and Agassiz are 
 given, and the kindness and generosity of Agassiz to 
 the two Schimpers are revealed; full justice is done to 
 the brilliant intellect of Karl Schimper, and his share in 
 the diagram entitled " Crust of the Earth as related to 
 Zoology," constructed by him with the help of notes 
 furnished by Agassiz, and afterward published (1848), 
 is fully acknowledged. As to Agassiz's delay in return- 
 ing specimens of fishes lent to him for his great work 
 on fossil fishes, it was unavoidable, on account of the 
 many specimens to be taken care of, and the delay in 
 the publication. As soon as the work was finished, 
 every specimen was carefully packed and returned in 
 good condition- 
 
 Schimper's claim to a small collection of minerals 
 offered to Agassiz at Carlsruhe, when Agassiz was on 
 the point of beginning his lectures as professor at Neu- 
 chatel, shows only too plainly how depressed and de- 
 moralized Schimper had become after the break in his 
 relations with Agassiz in 1838. 
 
 The only fault, and it is a very trivial one, to be found 
 with Agassiz, is that he did not refer to Schimper again 
 in his volume " Etudes sur les Glaciers," in regard to 
 the otherwise erroneous explanation of the diminution 
 of the temperature of the globe with the disappearance 
 of the animals, analogous to the phenomena accompany- 
 
1841-42.] KARL SCHIMPER. 207 
 
 ing the death of individuals, and then of its rising again, 
 due to the arrival of a new creation of animals, develop- 
 ing heat as a consequence. In his volume Agassiz 
 reproduced Schimper's small mathematical figure, and 
 it would have been well to quote Schimper as his 
 authority. Alexander Braun, when consulted, threw the 
 blame on Agassiz, but refused to take part in the dis- 
 pute. In a letter from Agassiz to Braun, published in 
 Braun's Life, by his daughter, he says that if he did not 
 quote and speak of Schimper in his " Etudes sur les 
 Glaciers," it was in order to punish Schimper for his 
 unjustifiable conduct towards him; a very lame excuse, 
 for scientific ideas and discoveries are sacred property, 
 which cannot be cancelled under any circumstances. 
 If Agassiz had repeated the sentence in his Neuchatel 
 Address of 1837, "l'explication de tous ces phenomenes 
 (glaciaires) est le resultat de la combinaison de mes idees 
 et de celles de M. Schimper," everything would have 
 been satisfactory. 
 
 It is strange that Agassiz did not abandon the theo- 
 ries advanced in his " Discours de Neuchatel," after its 
 delivery; for they met with not the smallest acquiescence 
 or encouragement, either from those who heard the 
 address or from those who read it afterward. De Char- 
 pentier was against it, and Sedgwick, the celebrated 
 geologist of Cambridge (England), expressed in happy 
 terms the impression made on him by the reading oi the 
 " Etudes sur les Glaciers," when he said : " I have read his 
 Ice-book. It is excellent, but in the last chapter lie loses 
 his balance, and runs away with the bit in his mouth." ] 
 
 1 "Life and Letters of Sedgwick," Vol. II., p. iS, Cambridge, 1 
 
2oS LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. viii. 
 
 The immense " nappe " of ice covering the earth, its 
 breaking by the upheaval of the Alps, etc., seem the 
 theoretical views of a dreamer, and are entirely at vari- 
 ance with the excellent and remarkable observations on 
 the power of glaciers to carry boulders, and their great 
 extension during the Quaternary epoch. But it was a 
 special characteristic of Agassiz's mind, which was 
 intensified by the teaching of his great master Cuvier, 
 seldom to acknowledge an error, but on the contrary 
 to try by all means to maintain his position. He re- 
 peatedly made mistakes in dealing with other savants, 
 and also in the too hasty generalizations which he 
 sometimes put forward in natural history. I do not 
 hesitate to attribute these weak points in Agassiz's 
 character to the influence of the author of the " Ana- 
 tomie Comparee," an influence which, if profitable on 
 many accounts, was sometimes much to be regretted. 
 At all events, Cuvier's influence was profound, and 
 among many things that Agassiz learned in his labora- 
 tory, was one of his most pronounced faults, the author- 
 itative and tyrannical attitude of the master, unable to 
 accept a contradiction, or to abandon an idea, when 
 once promulgated and in print. 
 
 The polemic with Karl Schimper was unfortunate, 
 because Schimper was no longer responsible. Like all 
 persons suffering from mental disorder, he thought he 
 had discovered all that he had heard in regard to the 
 glaciers and the glacial question during his long visits 
 at Bex and at Neuchatel, and he treated very slightingly 
 Venetz, Charpentier, and Agassiz ; he attributed to him- 
 self the lion's share, when he was only a poetical echo, 
 
1841-42.] DANIEL DOLLFUS-AUSSET. 209 
 
 and a rather fantastic one at that, of what he had heard 
 during his stay in Switzerland. His half-scientific, half- 
 humorous poem " Die Eiszeit," printed at Neuchatel, 
 for friends, the 15th of February, 1837, the birthday of 
 Galileo Galilei, whose name Schimper had assumed when 
 a student, shows the state of mind into which he had al- 
 ready sunk; that of an obscured spirit. Schimper, after 
 brilliant "debuts" in science, produced nothing but two 
 small volumes of indifferent poetry, entitled " Gedichte ' 
 (Erlangen, 1840, and Mannheim, 1847); ne published 
 nothing on the morphology of plants, although he is 
 justly regarded as one of its discoverers. Charged by 
 Prince Maximilian of Bavaria, in 1842, to make a sur- 
 vey of the Bavarian Alps and the Palatinate, he made 
 no report, and finally was confined in an asylum, at 
 Schwetzingen, where he died the 21st of December, 
 1867. 
 
 There is no doubt that Schimper was a well gifted 
 man. Without publishing a word, he left, as a botan- 
 ist, a reputation of a high order, and he influenced 
 both Alexander Braun and Agassiz to a great extent, 
 possessing more imagination and original ideas than 
 either of them. " II n'a manque a Schimper que 
 d'etre sobre," one of those who knew him best once 
 said to me. 
 
 Among the visitors attracted by curiosity t'> the 
 "Hotel des Neuchatelois," during the summer <>!" 1S4 \ 
 was a great manufacturer of Mulhausen, M. Daniel 
 Dollfus-Ausset. Such an enthusiast of high regions, <»t" 
 glaciers, and of the glacial question, has rarely existed. 
 He was so fascinated by all that he saw on the glacier 
 p 
 
2io LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. viii. 
 
 of the Aar, that from that day he became not only an 
 adept, but one of the most generous patrons of the work 
 in progress on the Oberland glaciers. As a first step, 
 he begged Agassiz to accept for him, and as many of 
 his assistants as he wished, an invitation to pass the 
 week between Christmas and New Year with him at the 
 Hotel des Trois-Rois at Bale, as a relaxation from their 
 hard work, and to celebrate his enrolment among the 
 glacialists, and the inhabitants of the " Hotel des Neu- 
 chatelois." Agassiz, in company with Desor and Vogt, 
 left Neuchatel the 24th of December, 1842, and arrived 
 at Bale in time to celebrate " Le reveillon," or Christmas 
 Eve. " Papa Dollfus," as he was always called after- 
 ward, received them most cordially, and for a whole 
 week, with the exception of daily morning work at the 
 Museum of Natural History, under the direction of the 
 learned and very sociable Peter Merian, they were 
 treated as princes of the sciences. 
 
 And thus Agassiz and his assistants ended the year 
 1842 at Bale, in the enjoyment of a royal hospitality. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 i 843- i 844. 
 
 " Recherches sur les Poissons Fossiles," 1833-1843 — Review ok it 
 by Jules Pictet de la Rive — Dr. A. Gunther's Opinion — Agas- 
 siz's Errors with the Eocene Fossil Fishes of Claris (Switzer- 
 land) — The Part taken by Collaborators in the "Poissons 
 Fossiles" — Another Visit to the Glacier of the Aar — The 
 Meeting of the Helvetic Society at Lausanne, July, 1843 — 
 Agassiz's Hospitality at Neuchatel — False Position of his 
 Secretary, Desor, and his Assistant, Vogt — Scientific Life in 
 Neuchatel — " Monographies des Poissons Fossiles du Vu 
 Gres Rouge," 1844 — The Geologist and Stonecutter, Hugh 
 Miller — " HistoireNaturelledes Poissons d'Eau douce" — Karl 
 Vogt leaves Agassiz — Extraordinary Session of the Geological 
 Society of France at Chambery (Savoy) — Failuke of Nicoi 
 Lithographic Establishment — Dinkel leaves Neuchatel — Ill- 
 ness of Gressly. 
 
 The publication of the " Recherches sur les Poissons 
 fossiles" continued through the ten years from 1833 
 to 1843, when the eighteenth and last part or "livrai- 
 son " was issued, with "Additions a la preface," dated 
 Neuchatel, May, 1843, which may be considered as the 
 last pages of that great work. It is a true monument 
 to the science of palaeontology, and to speak of it with 
 authority requires such special study of ichthyology, 
 that the only way to give an idea of its value is to quote 
 one of the very few men able to speak of it with " con- 
 
 211 
 
2i2 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. ix. 
 
 noissance de cause." For this reason, I have chosen to 
 quote what Jules Pictet de la Rive says of it in his arti- 
 cle, "Agassiz" ("Album de la Suisse Romane," $ ihme 
 vol., Geneva, 1847). Pictet had made a special study 
 of fossil and living fishes, and his intimacy with and 
 admiration for Agassiz never relaxed during his whole 
 life. Independent by character and possessing a large 
 fortune, Pictet's opinions are properly considered just 
 and unbiassed. 
 
 " The ' Recherches sur les Poissons fossiles,' ' says 
 Pictet, " was one of the first conceptions of Agassiz, and 
 form to-day his most substantial title to renown. It is 
 in this beautiful work that the immanent qualities of 
 our learned palaeontologist shine more specially and 
 that his rich imagination has full play, although always 
 guided by a sagacious and well-balanced judgment based 
 on conscientious researches and on a minute analysis 
 of even the smallest parts of the organism. 
 
 "The limits of this article do not allow us to give 
 a complete idea of the work, which is composed of five 
 quarto volumes and a folio atlas of almost four hundred 
 plates. We shall only try to set forth the aim, the 
 plan, and the most important results. 
 
 " We know that when Cuvier published his first works 
 on the fossils his principal aim was to demonstrate that 
 the species destroyed by the revolutions of the globe 
 and preserved as fossils are different from those living 
 now on our continents and in our seas. That truth has 
 to-day become unquestionable, and new discoveries have 
 shown by the most undeniable evidence, that there 
 have been in the history of the earth a series of epochs 
 
1 843-44.] PO/SSONS FOSSILES. 213 
 
 during which the forms of the oceans and the conti- 
 nents have been successively modified, and each one 
 of them has been characterized by a special flora and 
 fauna ; that is to say, by an ensemble of vegetables and 
 animals specifically different from those coming before 
 or after. The fishes have existed since the oldest ages 
 of the globe, and their remains are found in all the 
 successive periods. Their palaeontological history, con- 
 sequently, is most important, and furnishes precious 
 data concerning this succession of faunas. 
 
 " When Agassiz began his researches and foresaw 
 the importance of the result that he might draw from 
 them, the classification of fishes was not advanced 
 enough to allow sufficient comparisons. Some dissimi- 
 lar forms were associated together, while other very 
 similar ones were separated by large intervals. Before 
 everything else, it was necessary to establish an exact 
 classification. Agassiz found in the scales the neces- 
 sary elements to solve the problem, and he recognized 
 that these teguments of the body correspond well with 
 the interior characters, and that their variations are, 
 in general, associated with and due to, organic differ- 
 ences. He accordingly divided fishes into the follow- 
 ing four orders : (1) The Cycloids, with scales, rounded, 
 smooth, and simple at the margin, composed of laminae 
 of horn or bone, but without enamel, — endo-skeleton 
 ossified; (2) the Ctenoids, with scales jagged or pecti- 
 nated (like the teeth of a comb) on the posterior margin, 
 formed by laminae of horn, but without enamel, — endo- 
 skeleton ossified; (3) the Ganoids, with angular scales 
 regularly arranged like paving-stones, and composed of 
 
214 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. ix. 
 
 horny plates covered with a strong, shining enamel, — 
 endo-skeleton cartilaginous, in some partly osseous and 
 partly cartilaginous ; (4) the Placoids, with cartilaginous 
 skeleton and skin covered irregularly with enamel 
 plates, sometimes of considerable dimensions, at other 
 times reduced to small points like the prickly, tooth- 
 like tubercles on the skin of rays. 
 
 " This classification allowed easy comparisons and 
 generalizations, and the palaeontologic history of the 
 fishes offered results not at all expected and most im- 
 portant. These animals have been completely renewed 
 by successive creations, and whole populations of them 
 have been destroyed to make room for others which were 
 very different. Of the four orders indicated above, 
 the Placoids, or cartilaginous fishes, have existed during 
 all the geologic periods, though they have undergone 
 various modifications, most remarkable especially in the 
 teeth. But the other three orders — that is, the osseous 
 fishes — have somehow replaced one another. Our 
 present seas contain almost altogether Ctenoids and 
 Cycloids, and, except two genera of Ganoids living in 
 rivers of warm countries, these two orders compose all 
 the present fauna of osseous fishes, while, on the con- 
 trary, none existed before the deposit of the chalk, and 
 it would be vain to look in all the preceding epochs for 
 one Ctenoid or one Cycloid ; that is to say, the old seas 
 did not contain a single fish with thin horny scales like 
 our perches or our trout, while in the present fresh 
 waters and seas we find such fishes almost altogether. 
 
 " On the other hand, the Ganoids were most common 
 previous to the Cretaceous epoch, and that order, now 
 
1 843-44.] POISSONS FOSSILES. 215 
 
 reduced, as I have said above, to only two genera, then 
 formed the majority of the population of the seas. 
 These same fishes present in their history a very re- 
 markable fact. Until the Lias epoch, all the Ganoids 
 possessed on the superior part of the tail a lobe formed 
 by a prolongation of the vertebrate column. But from 
 the Lias, on the contrary, all had a tail formed as that 
 of the osseous fishes of the present time ; that is 
 to say, the vertebrate column stops at the base of 
 the tail. 
 
 "It is, therefore, possible to divide the palaeonto- 
 logical history of the fishes into three periods or epochs. 
 During the first, extending from the Silurian to the 
 Trias, the faunas are composed of Placoids and Ganoids 
 with the vertebrate column prolonged to the upper lobe 
 of the tail. In the second, which corresponds to the 
 Jurassic epoch, we find the Placoids and Ganoids, with 
 the ordinary tail. In the third, which began during the 
 Cretaceous epoch and continued in our modern period, 
 the Placoids, the Ctenoids, and the Cycloids form almost 
 entirely the ichthyological population of the world. 
 Hence, if a geologist found a Ganoid with a prolonged 
 tail, he could conclude that the strata in which he found 
 it belonged to the first period; a Ganoid with an ordi- 
 nary tail would indicate, with sufficient certainty, that 
 the group of strata belonged to the second epoch ; and 
 so on. 
 
 " It is easy to understand the interest created by a 
 work, the aim and result of which are to demonstrate 
 such remarkable laws, more especially when the proofs 
 are based on an incredible number of facts and observa- 
 
216 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. ix. 
 
 tions. The work of Agassiz mentions more than one 
 thousand fossil fishes, with descriptions and beautiful 
 plates, which make them known almost as well as if 
 we were able to observe them alive. 
 
 " This work brought its author complimentary dis- 
 tinctions from several academies and learned societies. 
 Particularly during a journey in England and Scotland 
 all the collections were open to him, assistance in vari- 
 ous ways was offered, and he had the great satisfaction 
 of seeing with what astonishing precision the numerous 
 new facts which he daily observed confirmed all his 
 previous conclusions. The English and Scotch geolo- 
 gists for many years kept the remembrance of some 
 keen anecdotes on the subject. 
 
 " Agassiz's researches opened a new path, through 
 which he continued to advance, publishing in the mean- 
 time supplements to his main work ; among them, a 
 ' Monographie des Poissons du vieux gres rouge,' which 
 was soon followed by one on the ' Poissons de l'Argile 
 de Londres.' The first of these monographs furnished 
 some interesting results, both geological and zoological ; 
 in particular, it demonstrated two most important laws : 
 ist, the analogy existing between the first condition of 
 the embryos of fishes and the organization of fossil 
 fishes of the oldest epochs ; 2d, the parallelism exist- 
 ing between the embryologic development of the fishes 
 and the succession of the different types of these ani- 
 mals in the series of formations." 
 
 There is nothing to add regarding the great value of 
 this "vaste publication," as it is called by Pictet ; but 
 a few words are necessary to indicate some of the criti- 
 
1 843-44.] PO/SSONS FOSSILE, 217 
 
 cism which it called forth, and to meet claims which 
 have now and then been put forward. 
 
 Agassiz knew perfectly well that his classification was 
 artificial, and not based on all the natural principles, as 
 it should have been, and as Cuvier's was before him ; but 
 he wanted to make use of a great quantity of fragmen- 
 tary specimens, and even mere scales of fishes, which 
 were found in abundance, and which otherwise would 
 have been useless, and would have left a great gap in 
 his series of forms. He w r orked as much to prove the 
 succession of fishes in the different systems of strata, as 
 to obtain a knowledge of them zoologically, trying to 
 find laws which might be used in palaeontology to clas- 
 sify groups of strata by their fossil fishes. And he 
 succeeded admirably, notwithstanding the defect of his 
 empiric classification. 
 
 As Dr. A. Giinther says : " We have no hesitation in 
 affirming that if Agassiz had had an opportunity of 
 acquiring a more extensive and intimate knowledge of 
 existing fishes before his energies were absorbed in the 
 study of fossil remains, he would himself have recog- 
 nized the artificial character of his classification. The 
 distinctions between Cycloid and Ctenoid scales, between 
 Placoid and Ganoid fishes, are vague, and can hardly be 
 maintained. So far as the living and post-Cretacean 
 forms are concerned, he abandoned the vantage-ground 
 gained by Cuvier ; and therefore his system could never 
 supersede that of his predecessor, and finally shared the 
 fate of every classification based on the modifications of 
 one organ only. But Agassiz has the merit of having 
 opened an immense new field of researches by his study 
 
2i8 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. ix. 
 
 of the infinite variety of fossil forms. In his principal 
 work, ' Recherches sur les Poissons fossiles,' 1833— 
 1843 (4to, atlas folio), he placed them before the world, 
 arranged in a methodical manner, with excellent descrip- 
 tions and illustrations. His power of discernment and 
 penetration in determining even the most fragmentary 
 remains is truly astonishing ; and if his order of Ganoids 
 is an assemblage of forms very different from what is now 
 understood by that term, he was, at any rate, the first 
 who recognized that such an order of fishes existed." 1 
 
 Agassiz was one of those naturalists who find it easier 
 to discover differences than to bring together specimens 
 of fossils. He possessed a rare power of discerning 
 the smallest differences between allied forms of ani- 
 mals ; but sometimes he went too far, as in the case of 
 the Eocene fossil fishes in the flysch of Glaris (Switz- 
 erland), where the cleavage resulting from the breaking 
 and compressing of the strata, during the dislocation of 
 the Alps, deformed some specimens to such an extent 
 that Agassiz was led to establish six species of Anen- 
 cJiclum, all of which really belong to a single species, 
 Lcpidopus glaronensis. The same mistake has been 
 noted by Dr. A. Wettstein and A. Heim for species 
 of the genus PalcEorJiyncJmm, Acauus, etc. (" Actes de 
 la Societe Helvetique des Sciences naturelles," Geneva, 
 August, 1886, pp. 46, 47). India-rubber models of some 
 of these fossil fishes, when pulled in certain directions, 
 give as many species as Agassiz founded ; and it is evi- 
 dent that Agassiz, in some cases, too easily multiplied 
 
 1 " Ichthyology," by A. Gunther, in " Encyclopedia Britannica," ninth 
 edition, Vol. XII., p. 634, London, 1881. 
 
1 843-44.] COLLAR OR- 1 TORS. 2 1 9 
 
 the number of species without proper restriction. But 
 this is only a detail, which does not affect the final 
 result and conclusions, nor the prodigious capacity of 
 his memory, in which lay the true secret of his classifica- 
 tion of fossil fishes. 
 
 In regard to the help that Agassiz received in his 
 " Poissons fossiles " : in the first place, the excellent 
 drawings were made by Dinkel and Mrs. Agassiz, those 
 of the latter being fully as good as and rivaling in 
 execution the best of the artist Dinkel. Secondly, after 
 the issue of the first twelve parts or " livraisons," Agas- 
 siz made a great deal of use of his assistant Karl Vogt 
 and his secretary Desor, in preparing the bones and the 
 scales, and in writing the descriptions of species and 
 even of genera. But as Vogt wrote me : " Agassiz 
 avait parfaitement le droit de s'attribuer ces travaux, car 
 il me payait pour cela, j'etais son preparateur a gages 
 sous ce rapport." Only one-third of the work was thus 
 prepared with his two collaborators, under Agassiz's 
 direction ; but this may be said, that it would have been 
 much better if he himself had finished what he had so 
 well begun and continued until 1838. 
 
 At the end of July, 1843, Agassiz returned to his 
 work on the glacier of the Aar. A new cabin had been 
 erected, which was called the "Pavilion"; and Daniel 
 Dollfus-Ausset, with his son, established himself close 
 by, in another cabin. The time was passed in measurii 
 the motion of the glacier, its temperature, etc., and in 
 Alpine climbing. On the whole, it was a rather 
 pensive campaign, and the results were inadequate 
 compared with the money expended. 
 
220 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. rx. 
 
 During the meeting of the Helvetic Society of Natural 
 Sciences at Lausanne, the 25th and 26th of July, 
 Agassiz made a verbal communication in regard to his 
 researches on the glaciers, speaking of the new and 
 more practical direction given to his studies, and insist- 
 ing on the stratification of the glaciers and the blue 
 bands of ice, and on the formation of crevasses. At 
 the same meeting, he spoke of the great value of fossil 
 fishes in determining the ages of the "terrains," and 
 more particularly of the squaloid teeth, like those of 
 the true sharks, or squalodonts, the Ptycholepis of the 
 Chalk, the Strop Jwdus of the Jura, the Acrodus of the 
 Lias, and the Psamnodus of the Coal measures. 
 
 His great sociability, which attracted so many people 
 to the " Hotel des Neuchatelois," was exercised on 
 rather a large scale in Neuchatel, if we may judge by 
 the following letter : — 
 
 Neuchatel, 23 decembre, 1843. 
 Professeur Jules Pictet de la Rive, 
 Geneve. 
 
 Mon cher ami, — Favre vous aura fait part du desir que j'ai de 
 reunir ici quelques amis Jeudi prochain. Je viens insister aupres de 
 vous pour que vous soyez de la partie. 
 
 En arrivant Mercredi soir et en descendant " Aux Alpes," vous 
 trouverez Merian, Escher, Studer et Valentin. 
 
 L'un de mes guides m'a procure un jeune chamois dont nous 
 depecerons les os Jeudi chez moi. Faites-moi le plaisir devenir; 
 si vous pouvez, amenez les Plantamour. 
 
 Votre tout devoue, 
 
 Ls. Agassiz. 
 
 His prodigious power of attraction is shown in his 
 ability to bring together, for a single dinner party, at 
 
1 843-44.] HOSPITALITY AT NEUCHATEL. 221 
 
 Christmas time, during the snowy season, savants from 
 every part of Switzerland, from Bale, Zurich, Berne, 
 Geneva, etc., and at a time when travelling was not 
 easy, as it is now, with railroads in every direction. 
 Nothing shows better that Agassiz was an accepted 
 leader among the scientific men of Switzerland. 
 
 The year 1844 was a sad year with Agassiz. We 
 must turn back a few years in order to understand the 
 state of affairs, and how, little by little, he jeoparded 
 his position by a complete incapacity to manage his 
 assistants, his many employees, and his too numerous 
 undertakings. Too great familiarity with his assistants, 
 and inability to keep them at respectful distance, re- 
 sulted in his having no authority over them. If Agassiz 
 was a genius in natural history, in private life he was 
 entirely unable to manage his immediate surroundings. 
 Speaking of Agassiz's establishment at Neuchatel, Karl 
 Vogt says : " It was a scientific factory with a com- 
 munity of property; only, unhappily, neither the num- 
 ber of workmen nor the capital engaged was sufficient 
 and in proportion to the production." It was also an 
 overworked establishment. Agassiz, as its director, had 
 to provide everything ; first the money, for all were 
 penniless ; and the life they led, though without luxury, 
 was, after all, rather expensive; for to travel all over 
 Switzerland, to stay at the "Hotel des Neuchatel. >i 
 keep open house at Neuchatel not only for his ist- 
 ants, but also for all the naturalists who were continually 
 coming from every part of Europe, required a constant 
 expenditure of no small amount of money. Besides the 
 work of providing the money, Agassiz had an oversight 
 
222 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. ix. 
 
 of every work going on ; he had to dictate letters, to 
 insert sentences in the descriptions of his assistants in 
 order to connect them and give them unity, to read and 
 correct at least one of the proofs; even to direct the 
 draughtsmen, and to select the drawings to be used, in 
 regard to the artistic merits of which he was very 
 critical and a capital judge, seeing faults where others 
 were glad to admire the fine execution. Agassiz was 
 well seconded by the artists in his service ; but scien- 
 tifically the assistance he received was rather deficient. 
 Karl Vogt had been educated as a naturalist, and soon 
 became most efficient in regard to the anatomy and the 
 embryology of fishes ; he also worked out the osteology 
 and neurology, prepared the specimens, made the draw- 
 ings, and wrote the descriptions. He was a first-rate 
 assistant, knowing well his duties ; and during the five 
 years of his connection with Agassiz he did a great 
 amount of good work. Although he always insisted 
 that he was not a pupil of Agassiz, having learned 
 zoology in Germany, there is no doubt of the great influ- 
 ence exerted by Agassiz on his work during the first 
 ten years of his life as a naturalist. 
 
 In October, 1837, as we have seen, Agassiz engaged 
 Desor as his private secretary, who, until then had done 
 nothing in natural history, with which he was not even 
 acquainted, beyond the general knowledge possessed 
 by any student of a university. Employed first as a 
 translator and a writer of dictated letters, he soon 
 acquired sufficient knowledge of fossil fishes and fossil 
 echinoderms, to help in describing species. Under 
 Agassiz's teaching he made such rapid progress that, 
 
1 843-44.] SCIENTIFIC LIFE. 
 
 in three years, he became a useful assistant, not only in 
 pakeontological works, but also in the work on the 
 glaciers and the glacial question. Vogt says of him, 
 that in 1840 Desor was the " cheville ouvriere' (key- 
 stone) of the whole Agassiz establishment; and Agassiz, 
 on the nth of June, 1840, writes: — 
 
 Dans la redaction de cette seconde partie (Cidarides) de mon 
 memoire (" Description des Echinodermes fossiles de la Suisse") 
 j'ai ete continuellement assiste par M. Desor, qui a continue a me 
 preter l'appui de sa plume facile, comme il Pavait deja fait pour la 
 premiere partie. Mais cette fois son travail ne s'est pas born 
 une simple redaction ; Pexamen comparatif des nombreuses especes 
 des genres Diademe et Cidaris, dont les caracteres sont si difficiles a 
 apprecier, est meme entierement de son fait. Cependant j'en ai 
 revu la description, afin d'en partager avec lui la responsabilitc scien- 
 tifique. II nfest precieux d'avoir trouve dans un ami un collaborateur 
 aussi distingue. 
 
 Desor had no initiative faculty, and was totally devoid 
 of original ideas. He never rose above a third-rate 
 naturalist, retaining all his life the spirit of a lawyer, 
 with a special tendency to politics and a politician's 
 methods. Charles Girard was in too modest a position to 
 be helpful scientifically, except in the work of compila- 
 tion, which he always performed very industriously. As 
 regards Gressly, the help he gave Agassiz was invalu- 
 able; the exact geological position of two-thirds of the 
 fossils described in the different palaeontological works of 
 Agassiz was learned from him; and he furnished more 
 than half of the best specimens of the echinoderms, 
 the Myas and the Trigonias. In the scientific associa- 
 tion directed by Agassiz, Gressly acted as the St Bernard 
 dog, faithful, true, living, no one knew exactly how. 
 
224 LOUIS AGASS1Z. [chap. ix. 
 
 the crumbs from the table always spread in Agassiz's 
 home ; always satisfied, always respectful, and never so 
 happy as when Agassiz expressed his admiration of the 
 beautiful and rare fossils he drew from his numerous 
 and large pockets on his return from his never-ending 
 explorations in the Jura. However, an assistant as 
 modest and inexpensive as Gressly is a rare exception, 
 and Agassiz never again found one like him. 
 
 It was evident that something was wrong in the 
 whole establishment, and that running on such a basis 
 it would not last long. In fact, 1844 was its last year, 
 as we shall see further on. But before relating the 
 numerous incidents which one by one occurred and fin- 
 ally destroyed, at least partially, that extraordinary and 
 brilliant scientific centre, due entirely to the genius of 
 Agassiz, it is pleasing to call attention to two of the 
 best works done at Neuchatel under the impulse of 
 this remarkable man. 
 
 One of his most important works, and certainly his 
 most original, is the " Monographie des Poissons fos- 
 siles du Vieux Gres rouge ou Systeme Devonien [Old 
 Red Sandstone] des iles Britanniques et de Russie " 
 (4to, with a folio atlas of forty-one plates), which was 
 issued by " livraisons," or parts, the last three being 
 distributed in August, 1844. The material used was 
 mainly the specimens collected at Cromarty, in the 
 North of Scotland, by the celebrated geologist and 
 stonecutter Hugh Miller. 
 
 During the ten years previous to Agassiz's visit at 
 Cromarty, in September, 1840, Miller, with great 
 patience and skill, had unearthed from the old red 
 
1 843-44.] HUGH MILLER. 225 
 
 sandstone the most wonderful forms of animals 3 
 found. Agassiz says of some of them : " It is im- 
 possible to see aught more bizarre in all creation than 
 the Pterichthyan genus: the same astonishment that 
 Cuvier felt in examining the Plcsi ostiums, I myself ex- 
 perienced, when Mr. II. Miller, the first discoverer of 
 these fossils, showed me the specimens which he had 
 detected in the Old Red Sandstone of Cromarty." As 
 early as 183 1, Miller found the Ptcriclithys, or winged 
 fish; but Agassiz did not hear of it until 1S38, when a 
 description and drawing was shown him in Paris by 
 an English naturalist: he was greatly interested in this 
 new form of life, and very anxious to see more of it. 
 The following extract from Hugh Miller's principal and 
 most popular work, "The Old Red Sandstone," explains 
 how Agassiz was first made acquainted with Miller's 
 wonderful discoveries : — 
 
 A letter which I wrote early in 1838 to Dr. Malcolmson, then at 
 Paris, and which contained a rude drawing of the PtericJithys^ v. 
 submitted to Agassiz, and the curiosity of the naturalist was ted. 
 He examined the figure, rather, however, with interest than sur- 
 prise, and read the accompanying description, not in the K 
 inclined to scepticism by the singularity of its details. He had 
 looked on too many wonders of a similar cast to believe that he 
 had exhausted them, or to evince any astonishment that geol< 
 should be found to contain one wonder more ("The OKI K 
 Sandstone "' by Hugh Miller, p. 119, Boston, 1S54) . 
 
 Although Agassiz had great sympathy and very c 
 dial relations with Hugh Miller, their correspondence 
 was extremely limited. Mrs. Agassiz says that with 
 a single exception no letters have been found from 
 him among Agassiz's papers; and she gives that unique 
 
 Q 
 
22 6 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. ix. 
 
 letter in Vol. II., pp. 470-477 of her work (" Louis 
 Agassiz, His Life and Correspondence "). Lately 
 another letter has been found in Switzerland by 
 M. Auguste Mayor, and I here give an extract from it. 
 The principal part is descriptive of specimens of fossil 
 fishes sent to Agassiz, which would be unintelligible 
 without good figures, and is consequently omitted ; 
 but the parts given are interesting on account of the 
 great originality and keenness of the writer. 
 
 Cromarty, 30th May, 1838. 
 Professor Agassiz, 
 
 Neuchatel. 
 
 Honored sir, — I have just learned from my friend Dr. Mal- 
 colmson that you have expressed a wish to see one of the fossils of 
 my little collection. I herewith send it you and a few others which 
 you may perhaps take some interest in examining. 
 
 I fain wish I could describe well enough to give you correct ideas 
 of the locality in which they occur. Imagine a lofty promontory 
 somewhat resembling a huge spear thrust horizontally into the sea, — 
 an immense mass of granitic gneiss, forming the head and a long 
 rectilinear line of Old Red Sandstone the shaft. On the south side 
 are the waters of the Moray Firth, on the north those of the Firth 
 of Cromarty. The claystone beds which contain the fossils occupy 
 an upper place on the sandstone shaft, covering it saddlewise from 
 tilth to firth. A bed of yellowish stone about sixty feet in thick- 
 ness lies over them, except where they are laid bare by the sea, or 
 cut into by two deep ravines — a bed of redder stone of unascer- 
 tainable depth (though it may be measured downwards for consid- 
 erably more than one hundred yards) lies beneath. The beds 
 themselves average from ten to thirty feet in thickness. They 
 abound everywhere in obscure vegetable impressions and fossil 
 fishes, but in some little spots these last are much better preserved 
 than in the general mass. All my more delicately marked fossils 
 have been furnished by one little piece of beach hardly more than 
 lorty square yards in extent. 
 
1 843-44-] LETTER OF HUGH MILLER. 227 
 
 Of all the fossils of these beds, the one with the tuberculated 
 covering seems least akin to anything that exists at present. 1 
 have split up many hundred nodules containing remains of this 
 animal, for in the time of the Old Red Sandstone it must have 
 existed by myriads in this part of Scotland. The larger oiks I 
 have invariably found broken and imperfect. The nodules in 
 which they occur are in general too small to contain more than 
 detached parts of them when large ; and besides, the coat of the 
 creature, consisting of hard plates separated apparently by sutures, 
 must have offered a very unequal degree of resistance to the super- 
 incumbent weight. And, however, though the plates themselves 
 are often as well defined and entire as the bits of a dissected map, 
 they are almost always found displaced and lying apart. It is only 
 the smaller fossils that I find perfect enough to furnish me with 
 anything like adequate ideas of the original shape of the animal : 
 but in these, though the general outline be better preserved, the 
 plates are comparatively obscure. Thus the bits of the dissected 
 map still want a key, and I have not yet become skilful enough to 
 place them together without one. 
 
 The form of the body of the creature seems to have somewhat 
 resembled that of a tortoise. . . . Pardon me, honored Sir, that I 
 use this minute in describing these differences to you who obsei 
 better than any one else and can make a better use of what you 
 observe. I have not succeeded in convincing some of our northern 
 geologists that we have two varieties of small scaled fish in our 
 beds, and I am now appealing to you as our common judge, and 
 thus showing the ground of my appeal. Besides, as 1 cannot send 
 you my specimens by hundreds, I deem it best (though it may seem 
 presumptuous in one so unskilled) to communicate in this way the 
 result of my examinations of the whole. One single specimen 
 sometimes furnishes a characteristic tract regarding which perha 
 fifty illustrations of the same fossil may be silent. Among all my 
 specimens of the fish with the spines, only one shows me that the 
 animal was marked by a lateral line. ... I am afraid, ho 
 that when thus communicating the results of some of my petty 
 observations, I am but gaining for myself the reputation ol beil 
 tedious fellow. 
 
228 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. ix. 
 
 I need not say how heartily welcome you are to the specimens I 
 send you, should you have any wish to retain them. . . . Do I ask 
 too much, honored Sir, when I request a very few lines from you 
 to say whether the formation in which these fossils occur be a 
 freshwater one, or otherwise, and whether the small scaled fish with 
 the teeth be of a kind already known to geologists or a new one? 
 I am much alone in this remote corner — a kind of Robinson 
 Crusoe in geology — and somewhat in danger of the savages who 
 cannot be made to understand why, according to Job, a man should 
 be "making leagues with the stones of the field." 1 But I am san- 
 guine enough to hope that the good nature, of which my friend Dr. 
 Malcolmson speaks so warmly, may lead its owner to devote a few 
 spare minutes to render these leagues useful to me. 
 
 I am, I trust, sufficiently acquainted with geology, rightly to 
 value the decisions of its highest authority. 
 
 I am, honored Sir, with sincere respect, 
 
 Your most obedient Servant, 
 
 Hugh Miller. 
 
 P.S. — Since writing the above, I have picked up a specimen 
 which, I am pretty sure, you would deem interesting, but for which 
 I have unluckily no room in the box. It contains parts of the 
 tuberculated fossil, and among the rest the teeth of the creature. 
 These last somewhat resemble the teeth of a lobster, being appar- 
 ently cut out of the solid part of the jaw rather than fixed in it. 
 
 H. M. 
 
 Miller found more specimens, and more perfect ones, 
 in newly discovered beds of Old Red of Nairnshire, and 
 when Agassiz visited him in 1840, he showed him three 
 well-preserved species of the PtericJithys, and the wings 
 of a fourth. To one of these remarkable animals, look- 
 ing like the letter T, Agassiz has given the appropriate 
 name of PtericJitliys Milleri. Complete and good speci- 
 mens were exhibited at the Glasgow Meeting of 1840, 
 and some restorations of the animals were made by 
 
1 843-44.] OLD RED SANDSTONE. 
 
 Dinkel, in 1844, for the "Medals of Creation" by Dr. 
 G. Mantell, and were reproduced in the "Vestiges oi 
 Creation." But Dinkel, so well trained, and so long 
 Agassiz's artist of fossil fishes, was not successful ; and 
 he failed also in trying the restoration of another rather 
 curious form of Old Red fish, the Coccosteus or berry-on- 
 bone. These two examples show what strange creatures 
 existed during the Devonian period, and the credit of 
 determining their place is due to Agassiz's keen eyes 
 and great knowledge of comparative anatomy ; for lie 
 did not hesitate, on receiving the first broken and very 
 imperfect specimens, to say that the creatures must have 
 been fishes. As Miller says: "I received new light from 
 the researches of Agassiz which, while it did not show my 
 way more clearly, rendered it at least more interesting 
 by associating with it one of those wonderful truths, 
 stranger than fiction, which rise ever and anon from the 
 profounder depths of science, and whose use, in their 
 connection with the human intellect, seems to be to 
 stimulate the faculties. I have often had occasion to re- 
 fer to the one-sided condition of tail characteristic of the 
 ichthyolites of the Old Red Sandstone." " It character- 
 izes," says Agassiz, "the fish of all the most ancient for- 
 mations. At one certain point in the descending scale, 
 Nature entirely alters her plan in the formation oi the 
 tail. All the ichthyolites above are fashioned alter one 
 particular type — all below after another and different 
 type." 1 
 
 In his preface to "The Old Red Sandstone. as- 
 
 siz says: "So true is it that observation alone is a 
 1 "The Old Red Sandstone," pp. 115-110. Boston, 1S54. 
 
230 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. ix. 
 
 safe guide to the laws of development of organized 
 beings, and that we must be on our guard against all 
 those systems of transformation of species so lightly 
 invented by the imagination." What a prophetic and 
 true sentence against Darwin's " Origin of Species," 
 published fifteen years after. Observations and facts 
 only are given in his " Old Red Fishes," which he has 
 well summarized in the following words : " What I wish 
 to prove here, by a careful discussion of the facts 
 reported in the following pages, is the truth of the law 
 now so clearly demonstrated in the series of verte- 
 brates, that the successive creations have undergone 
 phases of development analogous to those of the embryo 
 in its growth, and similar to the gradations shown by 
 the present creation in the ascending series, which it 
 presents as a whole. One may consider it as hence- 
 forth proved that the embryo of the fish during its 
 development, the class of fishes as it at present exists 
 in its numerous families, and the type of fishes in its 
 planetary history, exhibit analogous phases through 
 which one may follow the same creative thought like a 
 guiding thread in the study of the connection between 
 organized being. . . . The facts, taken as a whole, 
 seem to me to show, not only that the fishes of the Old 
 Red constitute an independent fauna, distinct from those 
 of other deposits, but that they also present in their 
 organization the most remarkable analogy with the first 
 phases of embryologic development in the bony fishes 
 of our epoch, and a no less marked parallelism with the 
 lower degrees of certain types of the class as it now 
 exists on the surface of the earth." 
 
1 843-44-] FOSSIL FISHES OF THE OLD RED. 231 
 
 The "Monograph of the Fossil Fishes of the 
 Old Red' is more important for the embryoloj 
 development, the zoological gradation, the geological 
 succession, and the geographical distribution in the 
 past and the present, than the " Origin of Species," 
 by Darwin. It has remained, and will continue to 
 remain, a landmark in zoological researches, becau 
 nothing in it is left to supposition. Instead of being 
 a work of the imagination, a philosophical dissertation, 
 like the " Origin of Species," it is simply a record of 
 facts and very keen observations ; and in science, and 
 more especially in natural history, nothing is of value 
 except exact observations. Agassiz was not an op- 
 ponent of development; on the contrary, he gave facts 
 in its favour, many years before Darwin did ; but lie 
 was averse to drawing too hasty conclusions ; and 
 he leaned all the time "upon an intellectual coherence. 
 and not upon a material connection"; and lie thought 
 that variability seemed controlled by something more 
 than the mechanism of self-adjusting forces. In 
 word, Agassiz, after his student life, was not a 
 materialist, but a spiritualist, in natural history, an 
 adversary, both of agnosticism and of pietism ; tor he 
 says: "I dread quite as much the exaggeration oi 
 religious fanaticism, borrowing fragments from sciem 
 imperfectly, or not at all, understood, and then making 
 use of them to prescribe to scientific men what they 
 are allowed to see or to find in nature " ( Louis A 
 in a letter to Professor Adam Sedgwick, dated June. 
 
 1845 ')■ 
 
 1 "Louis Agassiz," by Mrs. E. I . Igassiz, Vol. I.. , 
 
232 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. ix. 
 
 The " Histoire naturelle des Poissons d'Eau douce 
 de l'Europe Centrale " remained unfinished, and has a 
 rather curious history. Agassiz began it as far back 
 as 1828, when he was a student at Munich, and when 
 his artist friend, Joseph Dinkel, was already making 
 drawings of freshwater fishes for him. 
 
 In 1839 appeared the first "livraison' of a folio 
 atlas, published " aux frais de l'auteur," and dedicated 
 to the British Association for the Advancement of 
 Science. This first monograph treated of the salmon 
 family, and was divided into two parts : the first, con- 
 taining the twenty-seven well-executed and luxuriously 
 printed plates by Dinkel, Sonrel, and Nicolet, illus- 
 trating the genera Salvio and Thymalus, with explana- 
 tions in French, German, and English, and with a cover 
 designed by Dinkel, representing fishes in all sorts of 
 attitudes and groups, with a boy four years old — the 
 portrait of Alexander Agassiz — fishing on the shore 
 of the Lake of Neuchatel. The second part of the 
 plates was announced to be issued with the first vol- 
 ume of text ; but changes were made, and the text of 
 Vol. I., containing the " Embryologie des Salmones," 
 by C. Vogt, was published in 1842, without plates, the 
 latter being issued in 1848, in Vol. III. of the " Memoires 
 des Sciences naturelles de Neuchatel." 
 
 Agassiz, under the date of 1845, in the introduction 
 of the " Anatomie des Salmones," by L. Agassiz and 
 C. Vogt, gives the following explanation : " The ana- 
 tomical studies contained in this memoir were under- 
 taken for the ' Histoire naturelle des Poissons d'Eau 
 douce de l'Europe Centrale, de M. Agassiz,' and were 
 
1 843-44-] K- VOGT /.EAVES AGASSIZ. 
 
 at first destined to form the second volume. Some 
 special circumstances have led the editor to adopt 
 another mode of publication. 
 
 "In order to render justice to every one, it is desir- 
 able to remark here that the Osteology and the Neurol- 
 ogy are due to the researches of M. Agassiz, while 
 the Myology, the Splanctionology \ the description of 
 the 'sensitive organs' and the Angiology have been 
 worked out by M. Vogt. All the plates were drawn 
 by M. Vogt. This work dates as far back as 1843 and 
 1844, a f ew observations being added in 1845. 
 
 "L. A." 
 
 That Agassiz directed the work and freely gave his 
 advice to Vogt, there is no doubt; but in some way 
 Vogt became dissatisfied. He disapproved of the 
 organization and methods of Agassiz's establishment, 
 and was more or less disappointed in his expectation 
 and, in consequence, in the autumn of 1844, alter act- 
 ing as Agassiz's assistant for five years — during which 
 time he certainly worked most efficientlv and very hard 
 — he left him to try his fortune in Paris. Strange to 
 say, the break between Agassiz and Vogt, instead of 
 healing as the years went by, increased to such an 
 extent, that they were very unjust and bitter towards 
 one another. It must be regretted, for nothin illy 
 
 important and seriously affecting either had occurred 
 between them. Agassiz never published anything 
 against Vogt, though Vogt might have shown more 
 discretion in his printed criticism ; and I do not hesital 
 to say that he was unjust and guilt) of exa ration 
 
234 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. ix. 
 
 touching some points, and that all that he says about 
 Agassiz's life in America is absolutely erroneous. He 
 disliked Neuchatel and the Neuchatelois, and most of 
 his indignation was hurled against them through and to 
 the detriment of Agassiz. 
 
 Although Agassiz spent a few days in 1843 on the 
 Aar glacier, his interest in the work going on there 
 was manifestly lessening, and in 1844 ne failed to make 
 his usual summer visit. 
 
 In July, 1844, Desor, with the permission of Agassiz, 
 published a very interesting and well written volume, 
 entitled, " Excursions et Sejours dans les Glaciers et 
 les hautes Regions des Alpes, de M. Agassiz et de ses 
 Compagnons de Voyage " (Neuchatel, i2mo). The vol- 
 ume begins with an excellent " Notice sur les Glaciers," 
 by Agassiz, a masterly paper, which gives a scientific 
 turn to the whole work ; the rest is written in a pictur- 
 esque style, and in imitation of the celebrated and popu- 
 lar works of Rudolph Topffer, the artistic and "spirituel " 
 author of the " Nouvelles Genevoises " and the " Voy- 
 ages en zig-zag." 
 
 It was certainly very generous in Agassiz to allow 
 his secretary to publish at this time all his researches 
 on the glaciers and among the Alps ; for it affected the 
 sale of his own " Etudes sur les Glaciers' (1840) and 
 "Nouvelles Etudes sur les glaciers actuels " (1847). 
 The last one, more especially, found no sale at all, 
 everything in it having been anticipated by Desor's 
 publication, which, though not so fully developed, ren- 
 dered Agassiz's work almost superfluous. Desor had 
 taken the lead in the glacial question, and was strug- 
 
1 843-44.] MEETING AT CHAMBERY. 
 
 gling with its physical problems, for which he was quite 
 as little prepared as Agassiz. Every impartial observer 
 saw this plainly; and it was melancholy to see Agassi. 
 already straitened resources expended upon almost 11 
 less works. 
 
 Although the extraordinary meeting of the Geological 
 Society of France, in the Swiss Jura, at Porrentruy, 
 Soleure, and Bienne, in 1838, had much advanced the 
 recognition of the glacial question, it was important that 
 another meeting should be held, this time in the very 
 centre of the phenomena, among the Alps. The city 
 of Chambery, then belonging to the kingdom of Pied- 
 mont and Sardinia, was chosen, and the society held it^ 
 extraordinary session there, during the month of August. 
 1844. Agassiz presided over several of the meetings ; 
 as did also Bishop Rendu. Here these two great mas- 
 ters of the glacial theory met and entirely agreed. 
 After a full and very clear exposition by Bishop Rendu 
 of his " Theorie sur les Glaciers en General," 1 the 15th 
 of August, Agassiz says that he agreed "entirely with 
 the theory as it was explained by Bishop Rendu.' 
 Numerous adversaries, representing the theories of mud 
 currents, or also of icebergs, tried hard to oppose them; 
 but one after another was silenced by the numerous 
 facts brought forward by Agassiz, Rendu, and other- 
 It was the last strong attempt to resist the glacial the- 
 ory. Afterward, Elie de Beaumont and his numerous 
 adherents in France and Italy, as well as Leopold \^n 
 Buch, continued their opposition, in a sort of Platonic 
 
 1 " Bulletin Societe geologique tie France," 2i*nw serie, Vol. I., pp. 
 
 631-636, Paris, 1844. 
 
236 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. ix. 
 
 way, to cover their retreat. But we may truly say that 
 the Chambery session of the Geological Society of 
 France was the Waterloo of the mud theory for trans- 
 portation of boulders. 
 
 Agassiz, as usual with him, was very brilliant in his 
 exposition of all the observations he had made on the 
 glacier of the Aar ; and Bishop Rendu admirably de- 
 scribed the phenomena in Savoy. Agassiz, more espe- 
 cially, insisted that proofs accumulated every year to 
 show that the " Ice-age ' extended all over Europe, 
 and that the Alps were formerly a great central mass of 
 ice, extending forty leagues all around, as far as Lyons. 
 Professor Angelo Sismonda, of Turin, continued to 
 maintain that the phenomena did not extend to the 
 southern part of the Alps of Piedmont, until Professor 
 Bartholomeo Gastaldi finally proved beyond question, in 
 1850, that ancient glaciers occupied the whole valley of 
 the P6 and other valleys in Piedmont, just as they did 
 the valleys of the Rhone, the Arve and the Isere rivers. 
 I well remember those discussions, for I was a hearer 
 of several of them, and can vouch for the splendid part 
 taken by Agassiz in hastening the acceptance of the 
 glacial doctrine. We may say, without any exaggeration, 
 that the interference of Agassiz advanced fully thirty 
 years the recognition of the glacial theory, and that he, 
 and. he alone, established the great " Ice-age." 
 
 Signs of bad management were visible in more than 
 one direction. The great lithographic institution of 
 Hercule Nicolet was kept running with the greatest 
 difficulty. After bringing about an association of Nico- 
 let with a capitalist, M. Jeanjaquet, Agassiz was con- 
 
1 843-44.] DINKEL LEAVES NEUCHATEL. 237 
 
 stantly obliged to furnish work absolutely unnecessary 
 and very expensive. In a letter to the firm Nicolet and 
 Jeanjaquet, dated 2d July, 1842, Agassiz says: "Vous 
 etes parfaitement libres de faire ce qu'il vous plalra a 
 l'egard de vos employes; deja trop souvent j'ai fait 
 faire des travaux considerables uniquement pouroccuper 
 vos employes, travaux qui me sont restes des mois et 
 des mois inutilement sur les bras. J'ai fait tirer de 
 fortes editions d'ouvrages divers, dont je n'ai que pen 
 d'exemplaires places, pour vous accommoder. . . . J'ai 
 l'honneur de vous prevenir que je desire savoir si je 
 puis compter sur les travaux dont je vous ai parte lors 
 de ma derniere visite aux Sablons, parce que sans cela 
 j'ai reellement l'intention de les faire faire ailleurs, car 
 je suis sur d'avance qu'ils me couteront beaucoup 
 moins." We have here Agassiz's own confession that 
 he undertook some works, solely to give occupation to 
 the too expensive lithographic establishments of the 
 Sablons, — an unbusiness-like proceeding, which was 
 certain to hasten the catastrophe which occurred, in 
 February, 1845, after a struggle of more than a year 
 and a half, when the whole establishment was broken 
 up and disposed of by auction. 
 
 Joseph Dinkel, the trusted and true friend of 
 his constant companion since they were students together 
 at Munich, left him to go to England to find work and 
 make a home for himself. He disapproved the leader- 
 ship of Desor, and foresaw very stormy times for his 
 good friend Agassiz; and he prophesied to an art 
 friend, who repeated it to me a few years after, that 
 Agassiz would not always submit to such a dictatorship 
 
238 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. ix. 
 
 as Desor had assumed, and that it would end in terrible 
 strife. Dinkel clearly saw the game Desor was playing. 
 From the first he did not like him, and it was very pain- 
 ful to him to see Agassiz fall into such hands. He left 
 Neuchatel, with regret, in the spring of 1844, and many 
 years after acknowledged "that for a long time he felt 
 unhappy at the separation." In most graphic terms he 
 described Agassiz, who, he says, " was a kind, noble- 
 hearted friend ; he was very benevolent, and if he had 
 possessed millions of money, he would have spent them 
 upon his researches in science, and have done good to his 
 fellow-creatures as much as possible." : Every word is 
 true, and is a noble tribute from one who knew Agassiz 
 most intimately during the time of life when faults of 
 character are most conspicuous, and are easily discov- 
 ered in the intimacy of friendship. 
 
 Still another misfortune befell Agassiz at the close of 
 the year 1844. Gressly, who usually returned to the 
 laboratory in Neuchatel at the beginning of the winter, 
 did not come back ; and it was only after weeks had 
 passed without any tidings of him, that it was learned 
 that the poor fellow was suffering under an attack of 
 religious insanity, and had been placed in an asylum. 
 
 1 " Louis Agassiz," by Mrs. E. C. Agassiz. Vol. I., p. 142. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 "MONOGRAPHIE DES MYES," 1842-1845 — THE " NOMENCLATOR Zooi.O- 
 GICUS," 1842-1845 — "BlBLIOGRAPHIA ZOOLOGLE ET GeOLOGI.1." — 
 
 " iconographie des coquilles tertiaires repctees identiques 
 avec les especes vlvantes," etc. — the two translations of 
 Sowerby's "Mineral Conchology of Great Britain" — Actual 
 Mercantile Value of Agassiz's Publications — Agassiz's Family 
 come to his Help — Great Credit Due to Neuchatel and its 
 Inhabitants — Agassiz's Last Series of Lectures: "Notice 
 
 LA GEOGRAPHIE DES ANIMAUX " — INTIMATE FRIENDSHIP Willi Jl 
 
 plctet de la rlye — agassiz's last vlsit to the aar ( '.lacier — 
 The Meeting of the Helvetic Society of Natural Sciences at 
 Geneva, August, 1845 — A Letter to Pictet, with Biographical 
 Remarks — Biography of Agassiz by Pictet — Agassiz R] 
 all the Specimens borrowed for his Great Paijeontological 
 Works. 
 
 The year 1845 was spent mainly in finishing the 
 publication of works more or less advanced, and in 
 making a sort of scientific " liquidation," or clearing up. 
 The " Monographic des Myes," a quarto volume, with 
 an atlas of ninety-four well-executed plates, begun in 
 1842, an excellent and very useful work, containing a 
 number of new, well-defined genera, and which h 
 since been used constantly in conchology, was com- 
 pleted. Alcide d'Orbigny criticised several of the new 
 
 239 
 
240 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. x. 
 
 genera, but Agassiz answered him successfully in his 
 " Introduction," maintaining the value of such genera 
 as GoniomycLy Ceromya, Arc o my a, Mactromya, Plearomya, 
 G res sly a, Cardiuia, etc., and in a letter to Pictet, dated 
 Aug. 15, 1845, he says: " Je crois que vous avez 
 accorde un peu trop d'importance aux critiques que 
 d'Orbigny a faites de quelques uns de mes genres des 
 Myacees. Dans ma 4^ me livraison j'ai refute ce qui 
 me paraissait exagere ; il y a des remarques justes, 
 mais il y en a quelques unes qui sont completement 
 erronees." 
 
 The manuscript of another work of great impor- 
 tance, of which the first part was issued in 1842, the 
 " Nomenclator Zoologicus," was pushed forward with 
 that strong will which was now and then characteristic 
 of Agassiz. As he says, the work embraces the sources 
 of critical zoology : " C'est un travail de patience qui 
 a exige des recherches bien longues et bien penibles. 
 J 'en avais con^u le plan des les premieres annees de 
 mes etudes et des lors je n'ai jamais perdu de vue ce 
 projet. J'ose croire que ce sera une digue contre la con- 
 fusion babylonique qui tend a envahir le domaine de la 
 synonymie en Zoologie " (Letter to M. de Chambrier, 
 President of the State Council of Neuchatel, April, 
 1842). 
 
 The publication, which is in Latin, is a large quarto, 
 issued in eleven fasciculi ; the last one, which treats of 
 the Colcoptcra, having been published at Soloduri, in 
 1846; while the " Prefatio indicis universalis" is dated 
 Neocomi, Mense, Decembri, 1845. The " Index" alone 
 comprises 393 quarto pages ; a duodecimo edition was 
 
i845-] NOMENCLATOR ZOOLOGICUS. 
 
 also issued at the same time. The general " Prefal 
 at the beginning of the work was written entirely by 
 Agassiz. It occupies forty-two pages, rendering justice 
 to all his collaborators, who included Prince Charles 
 Lucien Bonaparte, H. Burmeister, Dumeril, G. R. Gray, 
 Herman von Meyer, Milne-Edwards, Strickland, Charles 
 Des Moulins, etc. This " Prefatio ' is dated Neocomi 
 Helvetorum, Febr., 1846, only a few days before 
 Agassiz left Neuchatel for his journey to America. 
 To give an idea of the great labour expended in carry- 
 ing the work to completion, it will suffice to say that 
 it contains thirty-one thousand names of genera and 
 families alone, with bibliographical quotations number- 
 ing thirty-four thousand titles of works or papers on 
 natural history. In all, the number of quotations is 
 more than one hundred and fifty thousand. 
 
 Agassiz had collected for his own private use a 
 catalogue of all known works and detailed memoirs on 
 zoology and geology; and, before leaving Europe, he 
 made an arrangement with the "Ray Society," of 
 London, to publish it. Professor H. E. Strickland, the 
 successor of Buckland at the Oxford University, \\ 
 requested to act as editor; but, unhappily, Strickland 
 was accidentally killed, in September, [853, while geol- 
 ogizing on the track of the Great Northern Railway, 
 at the mouth of the Clanborough Tunnel, near East 
 Retford, before he had finished the publication of the 
 " Bibliographia Zoologize et Geologiae," based on A 
 siz's manuscripts; and Sir William Jardine, the eminent 
 naturalist, and father-in-law of the lamented Strickland. 
 completed the editing of the remaining volumes oi the 
 
 K 
 
242 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. x. 
 
 work, which is composed of four octavo volumes, con- 
 taining the literature of zoology and geology until 1846 ; 
 a most useful publication, dated London, 1 848-1 854. 
 
 In 1845 another memoir on fossil conchology was 
 published by Agassiz, under the title : " Iconographie 
 des coquilles tertiaires reputees identiques avec les 
 especes vivantes ou dans differents terrains de l'epoque 
 tertiaires, accompagnee de la description des especes 
 nouvelles," in " Nouveaux Memoires de la Societe Helve- 
 tique des Sciences Naturelles," Vol. VII. It is, perhaps, 
 the most objectionable paper he ever produced. Start- 
 ing from a preconceived idea that not a single animal 
 survived a geological epoch, and that no species passed 
 from one formation to another, with his great faculty 
 for differentiating specimens, he easily pointed out a 
 certain number of cases of Lucina, Venus y Cytherca, 
 Cyprina, and other acephales, which showed variations, 
 and which, according to his views, demonstrated that 
 the species, instead of being identical, were only analo- 
 gous. Deshayes and other conchologists did not accept 
 Agassiz's view, and, in fact, later knowledge has greatly 
 added to the number of species which pass from one 
 formation to another, not only for the tertiary epochs, 
 but also for the Mesozoic and the Paleozoic forma- 
 tions. The complete destruction of faunas and creation 
 of new and entirely different ones, without the survival 
 of a single species, can no longer be defended ; more 
 especially in its application to marine animals. As 
 usual, the memoir of Agassiz is beautifully illustrated 
 with fourteen plates, representing with great care all 
 the details of the shells. 
 
I845-] TWO TRANSLATIONS OF SOWERBY. 
 
 During 1845 the last parts of the two translations in 
 French and in German of Sowerby's " Mineral Conchol- 
 ogy of Great Britain" were distributed to the few sub- 
 scribers. The French edition, a large volume with an 
 atlas of 395 coloured plates, is entitled, "Conchologie 
 {sic) Mineralogique de la Grande Bretagne," par James 
 Sowerby, "traduction franchise revue, corrigee et an 
 ment.ee par L. Agassiz." The German edition entitled, 
 " James Sowerby's Mineral-Conchologic Grossbritan- 
 niens, etc., Deutsch bearbeitet von Ed. Desor. Durch- 
 gesehen und mit Anmerkungen und Berichtigungen 
 versehen von Dr. L. Agassiz," is also composed of a 
 large volume, with the same atlas of 395 coloured 
 plates. Although the price was considerably lower 
 than that of the original English edition, the two trans- 
 lations did not sell well ; especially the French edi- 
 tion, which was and has remained almost absolutely 
 unknown. The undertaking was a great mistake in 
 every way, and both works have remained a drug in 
 the market. 
 
 Generally, as years pass, or after the death of an 
 author, some of his publications become rare and 
 valuable, and command a higher price than was asked 
 at the time of their issue. With Agassiz's publications, 
 however, this is not the case; not a single one of his 
 European works is now quoted above, or even at, its 
 price of publication. All are discounted with a fair 
 reduction from the original price, and can be obtained 
 easily of any bookseller in Europe. The same thing 
 has happened also in the ease of all his publications in 
 America, with the single exception <>|" his volume on 
 
244 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. x. 
 
 " Lake Superior," the value of which has risen to two 
 and even three times the price asked by the publisher, 
 when it came out in 1850, and it is now difficult to pro- 
 cure a copy. The explanation of this in the case of 
 some of Agassiz's works, which are really of great 
 scientific value, is, that in their desire to help him, many 
 persons were ready to pay any price asked, and conse- 
 quently almost all his publications were issued at rather 
 high prices ; while others of his publications, although 
 they were expensive, were either not really needed, like 
 the translations of Buckland's and Sowerby's works, or 
 were limited to a too small circle of naturalists to secure 
 a large sale. 
 
 Better management would have prevented Agassiz 
 from running into debt on account of his numerous 
 publications. At the same time that he was issuing his 
 works with such losses, works of the same sort were 
 published in France, not only without loss, but even 
 with profit from the very beginning of the undertaking. 
 I refer to the great work of Deshayes, " Description 
 des Coquilles fossiles des Environs de Paris," and 
 more especially the " Paleontologie francaise," by Alcide 
 d'Orbigny. Agassiz differed from them, also, in his 
 method of working, and in his domestic arrangements, 
 for both Deshayes and d'Orbigny worked alone, without 
 assistants of any sort, except their artists ; and their 
 establishments at Paris were extremely modest, and 
 limited to what was strictly necessary. 
 
 In 1845 the pecuniary position of Agassiz became 
 very serious, and his family were obliged to come to his 
 assistance, which they did with great generosity. All 
 
i845-] CREDIT DUE TO NEUCHATEL. 
 
 his numerous and bulky publications were put into the 
 hands of the rich firm of Jent and Gassmann, bookselle 
 
 and publishers at Solothurn; securities were given to his 
 creditors, and everything was most honourably arranged 
 to relieve him from his immediate distressing position. 
 
 If, however, his Neuchatel establishment was a fail- 
 ure pecuniarily, scientifically it was a success unique 
 in natural history. The result of his fourteen years' 
 residence at Neuchatel was the publication of more 
 than twenty volumes, with two thousand folio or oc- 
 tavo plates, and many separate papers ; all were well 
 written, beautifully printed, and profusely illustrated 
 with most exact drawings — a record so creditable that 
 it gave a just celebrity, not only to Agassiz, but also to 
 Neuchatel, at that time a small town of less than six 
 thousand inhabitants. The " Neuchatelois ' may well 
 be proud of such a performance ; their great liberality 
 toward science, and their appreciation of the rare value 
 of Agassiz, made it possible for him to prosecute with 
 unimpaired vigour his remarkable scientific researches 
 famed the world over. 
 
 That Agassiz thought that he was acting wisely in 
 receiving Vogt and Desor at his table as regular board- 
 ers, and giving a room in his apartment to Desor, there 
 is no doubt. But, in the long run, the scheme pro. 
 expensive, and most harassing to his wife. Little by 
 little, the characters of both Vogt and Desor came 
 out; jokes of doubtful politeness were indulged in; 
 remarks rather satirical, cynical, and anti-religious were 
 not rare. Vogt, more especially, never missed an oppor- 
 tunity to make a " bon mot' at the expense oi the 
 
246 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. x. 
 
 Bible, turning into ridicule all religious beliefs and 
 practices. Mrs. Agassiz, being a religious woman and 
 bred in a totally different atmosphere in her own home 
 at Carlsruhe, was very sensitive to these sarcasms. 
 Finally expenses and difficulties reached such a climax 
 that a crisis became inevitable. Mrs. Agassiz's health 
 was poor; and the announcement, by newspaper, all 
 over Germany, of a royal gift by the king of Prussia to 
 allow Agassiz to make a journey to America, was 
 hailed as a proper moment to join her own family at 
 Carlsruhe. 
 
 In a letter, dated Carlsruhe, 16th of March, 1845, her 
 devoted brother, Alexander Braun, wrote that all was 
 ready at his home to receive her. (Alexander Braun's 
 " Leben," pp. 378, 379.) Taking her children with her, 
 first on a visit to the excellent mother of Agassiz at 
 Cudrefm, at the old Dr. Mayor's house, Mrs. Agassiz 
 then left Neuchatel early in May. It is the most pain- 
 ful incident in the life of the great naturalist. That 
 misunderstandings and difficulties developed mainly by 
 extravagance in the interest of natural history should 
 have had such a final result, is most pitiable and to be 
 regretted. These explanations are not meant to excuse 
 the faults committed by Agassiz at this time of his life ; 
 they show, however, how he fell into errors, and how 
 he might easily have avoided them. They have been 
 rendered necessary by what has been said, rather 
 bitterly, by the biographer of Desor (" Edward Desor : 
 Lebensbild eines Naturforschers," von Karl Vogt, 
 Breslau, 1882). 
 
i845-] HIS LAST LECTURE .11 NEUCHATEL. 247 
 
 In the spring of 1845, Agassiz delivered his last pub- 
 lic course of twelve lectures on the " Plan de la Creation.'' 
 showing the successive development of organized bein§ 
 It was followed with more attention and by a more numer- 
 ous audience than any of his previous annual series o! 
 lectures. The news that he was to undertake a journey 
 to the New World under the auspices, and with the help 
 of the king of Prussia and prince of Neuchatel, who con- 
 tributed from his private purse three thousand dollars, 
 caused a surprise mingled with fear that he would prob- 
 ably never return to resume his position at Neuchatel. 
 Everybody in Neuchatel highly appreciated, not only the 
 great savant who was truly the founder of the Academy, 
 — which, but for him, would not have been established 
 for years, — but also the friend and charmer so highly 
 esteemed and beloved, and went anxiously to hear him 
 once more; anticipating, with good reason, that this 
 last course might be regarded as his scientific testa- 
 ment. 
 
 Agassiz took care to dictate his last lecture, and pub- 
 lished it in the first number of the " Revue Suis 
 just transferred from Lausanne to Neuchatel, in Augu 
 1845. The title of the lecture is: ''Notice sur la G< 
 graphie des Animaux, par L. Agassiz"; and it begins 
 with the following sentence: "All organized beings, 
 plants as well as animals, are confined to a special 
 area [or, as he calls it, "out une patrie ' ]. Man alone 
 is spread over the whole surface of the earth." Strange 
 to say, one of his first impressions, alter studying the 
 different races of man he met with in America, led him 
 to reverse this opinion, and a tew years later he pub- 
 
243 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. x. 
 
 lished his remarkable and scientifically very frank 
 paper, ''Sketch of the Natural Provinces of the Ani- 
 mal World and their Relation to the Different Types 
 of Alan," Cambridge, 1853. Agassiz was too good a 
 naturalist, too much accustomed to differentiate ani- 
 mals, to accept unity in the genus Homo, and when 
 converted to the views of Dr. Samuel Morton of Phila- 
 delphia on the different types and diversity of man, he 
 frankly proclaimed his change of opinion to the scien- 
 tific world, with the same earnestness with which eight 
 years previously he maintained the old creed of a unique 
 species ; and when, a few years later, he heard of the 
 discoveries of the fossil man of the Quaternary epoch, 
 he accepted it at once, delighted to learn that a man 
 was in existence and saw the great glaciers, of which he 
 was the first to conceive the existence before the present 
 epoch. 
 
 I may add a personal reminiscence of the first time 
 I saw Agassiz, when I presented to him a letter of 
 introduction from his friend Jules Thurmann. He had 
 close by him on his desk a pile of copies of this notice 
 on the geography of animals, and taking one, he wrote 
 my name on the cover, and offered it to me. I have 
 ever kept that first gift of Agassiz — followed by many 
 others, for he always from that time gave me all his 
 publications — as a souvenir of one of the most fasci- 
 nating men I have met in my life ; for such was the 
 impression he made on me ; an impression which has 
 remained unimpaired, and indeed constantly deepened, 
 until the last day of his life. 
 
 During 1845, the friendship which had existed for at 
 
I845-] INTIMACY WITH PICTET. 249 
 
 least twelve years with Jules Pictet de la Rive oi ( jcik . 
 became intimacy, and remained so until the end. These 
 two savants had many similar qualities, and it is not 
 surprising that when they met they became the best oi 
 friends. For Pictet life was never difficult. Son of an 
 old and wealthy family, he married early the grand- 
 daughter of the celebrated Madame Necker-de-Saus- 
 sure, and became one of the richest men of Geneva ; 
 while, on the contrary, Agassiz had to struggle all his 
 life against poverty. However, both of them spent 
 largely for science, and were never so happy as when 
 they were able to secure at any price rare and well- 
 preserved natural history specimens. Although rich, 
 Pictet always worked very hard, being second only to 
 Agassiz in this respect, and not far behind him. He 
 conceived and published the first manual of palaeontol- 
 ogy in four volumes ; and the first copy was sent to 
 Agassiz, who wrote at once a review of it for the 
 " Bibliotheque Universelle." The following is a letter 
 from Agassiz on the subject: — 
 
 NEUCHATEL, 7 Mai. 1S45. 
 
 F. J. Pictet, 
 Geneve. 
 
 Mon cher ami, — Cest a vous plutot qu'a Monsieur de la Rive 
 que fadresse l'analyse que je viens de faire de votre ouvrage ( " Traite* 
 elementaire de Paleontologie' 1 ). Vous voyez que i*ai tenu part 
 de ne prendre que le temps mate'riellement ne'eessaire ."1 sa lecture 
 pour la rediger. Aussi ma notice doit se ressentir de cette precipi- 
 tation, et e'est ce qui m'a fait decider de vous la soumettre d'abord. 
 Corrigez et changez ce que vous voudrez, je n'ai pas I'esprit 
 repose pour avoir pu faire quelque chose de complet, quoique j 
 lu votre beau livre bien attentivement. Je ne doute pas que 1 
 
250 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. x. 
 
 ouvrage n'ait un grand succes, et je vous engagerais fort a en pro- 
 voquer la traduction en anglais et en allemand. 
 
 J'aurais eu un chapitre a ecrire sur la nature des progres orga- 
 niques, realises dans la serie des terrains, mais cela m'aurait entraine 
 a m'ecarter trop de votre ouvrage, et e'est ce que je n'ai pas voulu 
 faire. 
 
 Vous seriez bien aimable de venir me voir bientot ; quant a moi 
 je doute de pouvoir aller encore une fois a Geneve ; je suis accable 
 de travail. Mais proposez cette course a Favre et venez bientot; 
 ce serait un grand bonheur pour moi de vous revoir avant mon 
 depart qui est fixe' a la fin de Juin. [He did not leave, however, 
 until ten months later.] 
 
 Je vous enverrai sous pen un long memoire sur la question des 
 Coquilles Tertiaires reputees identiques avec les vivantes, que je 
 viens de faire imprimer. 
 
 Mille amities a M. de la Rive. J'ai d'excellentes nouvelles de 
 Vogt, qui travaille comme un forcene a Paris, je lui ferai parvenir 
 l'exemplaire du Traite (de Paleontologie) que vous lui destinez et 
 qu'il na surement pas davantage que moi. 
 
 Votre tout devoue, 
 
 Ls. Agassiz. 
 
 Dites moi si vous me pardonnez mes critiques. 
 
 A last visit to the glacier of the Aar, at the begin- 
 ning of August, 1845, was made in order to transfer 
 all the observations to Daniel Dollfus-Ausset, who had 
 generously offered to continue them at his own expense, 
 and who did so with great perseverance, during sixteen 
 years, until 1861. (See "Glaciers en activite," in "Ma- 
 teriaux pour 1' Etude des Glaciers," par Dollfus-Ausset, 
 Vol. V., Paris, 1870.) 
 
 As soon as Agassiz returned to Neuchatel, he again 
 left to attend the annual meeting of the Helvetian 
 Society of Natural Sciences, held at Geneva the nth, 
 1 2th, and 13th of August, 1845. There, although only 
 
1 845.] MEET/NG AT GENEVA. 
 
 a middle-aged man, he seemed like the leader of the 
 meeting. He spoke first, at the general session, on the 
 structure of the fins of fishes; and then, at the special 
 sections of physics, he gave an account of his research 
 during the last three years on the glacier of the Aar, 
 dealing more especially with the motion of the glacier, 
 its structure, the ablation of the surface, the meteorol- 
 ogy, etc. Discussion followed, in which Jean de Char- 
 pentier, the founder of the glacial theory, and Venetz, 
 son of the first promoter and discoverer of the existence 
 of ancient and immense glaciers in the Rhone valley, 
 took part and gave new proofs of the great value now- 
 attached to their first observations. Leopold von Buch, 
 present at the meeting, did not approve all that he 
 heard respecting glaciers, and left, rather indignant at 
 the evidence of the great progress made; for at this time, 
 all the Geneva naturalists, with the exception of Jean 
 Andre de Luc, then an octogenarian, were converted 
 to the new theory. Arriving at Zurich a few days 
 after the meeting was over, von Buch called on Arnold 
 Escher von der Linth, as he was accustomed to do 
 almost annually, and begged Escher to take him on an 
 excursion among the Alps of the Primitive Cantons oi 
 Switzerland, making the one condition, however, that 
 Escher would not once speak of anything relating to 
 glaciers and glacial action. Escher, who respected and 
 loved von Buch, as the best friend of his deceased 
 father, promised, and kept his word, notwithstanding 
 that he was himself one of the best and first-converted 
 glacialists, and that at every step he found most unde- 
 niable proofs of the great extension of glaciers. A tew 
 
252 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. x. 
 
 years later, Escher told me that it required the greatest 
 self-control he was ever able to exercise ; and that 
 nothing could induce him to attempt it again. 
 
 But to return to the Geneva meeting : Agassiz made 
 a third communication on the brain of fishes, and noted 
 the existence of a very large pot-hole (" Marmite des 
 Geants") above the Handeck Fall in the Bernese Alps. 
 At the great dinner, given to the Helvetian Society at 
 the " Hotel de la Navigation," Agassiz was toasted, 
 with the following remarks : " To the learned and ami- 
 able professor of Neuchatel, M. Agassiz, who is on the 
 point of undertaking a far-distant journey, where our 
 sympathies will follow him," etc. 
 
 The impression made on Agassiz was very strong, as 
 shown by the letter he immediately wrote to Pictet : — 
 
 Neuchatel, le 16 Aoftt, 1845. 
 Jules Pictet, 
 
 Geneve. 
 
 Mon cher ami, — Je ne veux pas tarder a. vous envoyer Miller 
 ("The Old Red Sandstone"), afin que vous le receviez avant votre 
 depart pour Naples. Renvoyez moi le des que vous le pourrez. 
 
 Je suis rentre* chez moi hier, comrae je me l'etais propose, et j ? ai 
 trouve ma mere qui m'attendait deja depuis la veille ; vous voyez 
 que c'eut ete tres mal de ma part de prolonger mon sejour a. 
 Geneve. II fallait vraiment un pareil motif pour me donner la force 
 de me separer de vous. Cette reunion a laisse dans mon cceur des 
 souvenirs ineffacables ; veuillez repeter encore a tous nos amis 
 communs, et en particulier a M. de la Rive, a Favre, a M. Marcet, 
 combien j'ai ete touche de leur accueil amical et de toutes les 
 marques d'amitie qu'ils m'ont donnees. 
 
 J'ai deja parcouru quelques feuilles de votre troisieme volume 
 ( Traite de Paleontologie) ; plus j'apprends a connaitre votre livre, 
 et plus je suis convaincu qull aura un grand succes. ... A propos, 
 
1 845-] 1U0GRAPHICAI. REMARKS. 253 
 
 j'ai oublie de vous demander si vous avez donne* suite a la demande 
 qui vous a etc faite de rcdiger une notice biographique sur mon 
 
 compte, dans la Revue Roman dc ou je ne sais quel autre recueil. 
 Si cela est, dites-moi ou je la trouverai. 
 
 Votre tout devnue, 
 
 Ls. Agassiz. 
 
 The biography by Pictct, with an excellent portrait 
 of Agassiz, was communicated in manuscript to Agassiz, 
 who, in returning it, wrote in the following terms : — 
 
 Neuchatel, 25 AoQt, 1S45. 
 Jules Pictet, 
 
 Geneve. 
 
 Remarques : 
 
 Verso de page 1. — "Cette correction, etc. 11 ; a effacer, on pour- 
 rait croire que mon pere m'avait a demi assomme, 1 et personne 
 n 7 etait moins severe que lui. 
 
 Page 2. — " d'eau douce" ; ajoutez : pour lequel il recueillit d'im- 
 portants materiaux dans le Rhin et dans le Necker. cju'il put com- 
 parer plus tard avec ceux du Danube et de I'Is&re, pendant son 
 sejour a. Munich et a. Vienne. 
 
 Verso de page 2. — Ajoutez au bas de la page : Ce gout pour 1" 
 servation fut encore augmente par les nombreux voyages qifil tit 
 dans le midi de PAllemagne, et en particulier dans les . du 
 
 Tyrol, ou il se familiarisa avec Tetude des plantes, sous la direction 
 d'un de ses condisciples, M. Alex. Braun, devenu depuis botanu 
 distingue. Ces connaissances lui furent plus tard d'une imnie: 
 utilite pour Tetude des plantes fossiles. 
 
 Page 4. — "Vogt. 11 La large part que j'ai faite a Vogl dans la 
 publication de Tembryologie des Salmones, que nous avons poursui- 
 vie pendant toute une saison en commun, et que je l*ai cl lus 
 
 tard de terminer, tandis que j'aurais etc pleincmcnt en droit ('; 
 
 1 Here is the corrected sentence: "II (Agassiz) ra lui-mftme 
 
 l'amour de la peche l'entratnait quelquefois trop loin, et que 1 puni- 
 
 tion qu'il recut jamais de son pere lui fut inflige parce qu'il s'etait Iropru- 
 
 demment embarque dans un petit bateau pour la peche du bi 
 
254 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. x. 
 
 ces antecedents de les publier sous nos noms reunis, ne doit pas 
 etre un motif pour m'exclure de toute participation a ce travail ; 
 ainsi modifiez legerement cet article, d'apres la preface de Touvrage 
 redigee par Vogt lui-meme. 
 
 Page 9. — Vous citez ici pour la deuxieme fois Touvrage de Char- 
 pentier et vous ne mentionnez pas meme le mien qui etait deja, 
 lorsqiril parut en 1840, appuye sur plus de faits que ceux que decrit 
 Charpentier. J'y donne deja des chiffres, et les premieres planches 
 que Ton ait possedees sur les glaciers, faites en vue de faire con- 
 naitre leur structure, la disposition des moraines, Taction des glaciers 
 sur le sol, les roches polies, etc., etc. 
 
 Ce fut deja en 1840 que j'allai visiter PEcosse pour y chercher 
 des traces de glaciers et que je demontrai leur presence dans une 
 foule de ces belles vallees, tant d'apres Tarrangement des moraines 
 qui les traversent, que d'apres la nature des polis de leurs parois 
 rocheuses et des galets de leur fond. Jeles observai aussi en Irlande, 
 en Angleterre dans la region des lacs, et plus tard dans la Foret 
 Noire. Et e'est a. ces observations qifest du Finteret general qu'a 
 pris la question des glaciers. 
 
 Derniere page. — Ajoutez : Sous les auspices et aux frais du Roi 
 de Prusse, auquel j*ai du de flatteuses distinctions, ou quelque chose 
 d'analogue ; ce sera utile pour l'avenir. 1 
 
 Voila bien des observations, mon cher ami, mais vous les intro- 
 duirez encore plus brievement dans votre notice qui me fait grand 
 plaisir, et pour laquelle je vous remercie vivement. Si j'ai fait une 
 petite note pour les Etudes sjtr les glaciers, e'est que j'ai le senti- 
 ment qua Tegard de ce livre, on n'a pas ete juste a mon egard et 
 que de toutes parts on lui a jete la pierre contre ; les uns disent que 
 j'en avais emprunte le contenu a M. de Charpentier que je n'avais 
 pas pourtant visite qu"en 1836, tandis que mon ouvrage est de 1840, 
 et est le resultat de mes courses et de mes observations propres ; de 
 la la divergence sur tant de points avec de Charpentier qui n'a 
 publie qu^in an plus tard ; les autres, et Forbes en particulier, meme 
 en 1842, nfont refuse la connaissance de tout fait qui n'etait pas 
 
 1 It is 'evident that Agassiz, at that time, still hoped to be called to a 
 professorship in the University of Berlin. 
 
1 845.] HIS BIOGRAPHY BY PICTET. 
 
 mentionne dans mes Etudes et cela meme pour des faits que je li 
 ai montres le premier. Ce n'est done pas pour une miserable glo- 
 riole que je reclame, mais par un sentiment de just; 
 
 Demain ou apres-demain je vous enverrai mes Myes. 
 Adieu, mon cher ami. 
 
 Tout a vous. 
 
 Ls. Agassiz. 
 
 P.S. — Voudriez-vous dire a Favre ou a son fa-re, si Alpho 
 est aux Diablerets, qu'alors meme que je ne reponds pas imme'diate- 
 ment a sa lettre, il peut compter que je lui donnerai les renseigne- 
 ments qu'il me demande pour son voyage dans le Nord. avant mon 
 depart. 
 
 Pourrais-je obtenir de Tediteur de votre notice d'en avoir quel- 
 ques exemplaires pour distribuer a mes amis? 
 
 Adieu, bon voyage si vous allez a. Naples, mes amities au Prince 
 de Canino. 
 
 The biography of Agassiz by Pictet is almost un- 
 known, on account of its publication in an album, 
 which had a very limited circulation, confined to French 
 Switzerland, and among a circle of subscribers residing 
 in villas round the shore of the Lake of Geneva. Of 
 the many biographical notices, published cither during 
 the life or after the death of Agassiz, it is by tar the 
 best; and I cannot do better than to quote the fust and 
 last sentences, — two admirable pages of true and just 
 homage to the great naturalist. Pictet says : 
 
 Parmi les savants dont la Suisse a pu avec raison s'honoi 
 dans ces dernieres annees, Agassiz est certainement un de ceux 
 dont la reputation est la plus populaire. Des travaux scientifiques 
 remarquables, empreints de ce melange d'imagination el de jug 
 ment qui caracte'rise les creations brillantes et durables, une grai 
 perse've'rance dans Tetude des faits, une eloquence chaleure 
 entrainante, justifient amplemenl cette reputation, h laquell 
 etudes sur les glaciers, plus a la ported de tout le monde 
 
256 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. x. 
 
 • 
 
 autres travaux, ont ajoute un nouvel eclat. Qui, en effet, parmi les 
 amis des Alpes, ne s'est pas interesse a cette petite reunion cThommes, 
 lies par Pamour de la science, transportant leur laboratoire dans ces 
 Hautes Regions Glacees, decrivant en artistes les beautes speciales 
 de ces vastes solitudes, y exercant une large hospitalite et deployant 
 dans leurs travaux une perseverance, une ardeur et quelquefois une 
 hardiesse bien faite pour captiver Tattention des plus indifferents ? 
 . . . Nous avons cherche a esquisser ici la vie deja si remplie de 
 notre savant compatriote, nous aurions voulu oser penetrer encore 
 plus avant, et raconter a ceux qui ne le connais'sent pas, son carac- 
 tere aimable et attachant, son ardeur dans tout ce qu'il entreprend, 
 sa vivacite dans la discussion unie a la politesse du coeur et en un 
 mot toutes les qualites qui lui ont cree partout des amis et qui Pont 
 fait lame de reunions des naturalistes suisses qu'il vivifie par sa 
 presence. 
 
 Such appreciation, coming from so independent and 
 just a naturalist as Jules Pictet de la Rive, shows what 
 a strong hold Agassiz had upon his countrymen, when 
 hardly in middle life ; indeed, before he was forty years 
 old. Every one in Switzerland felt that so small and 
 modest a place as Neuchatel could not retain him 
 any longer. Even Swiss naturalists saw plainly that 
 Switzerland was too small a field for the indefatigable 
 activity of a man so gifted, and that his proper place 
 was either at Paris, or in a new and great country like 
 the United States of America ; and when he left, every- 
 body knew that it was a final departure, and that 
 Agassiz was lost to the fatherland. 
 
 Agassiz's letter to Pictet is also most important, 
 because it gives an inside view of several occurrences, 
 more especially of the difficulty with de Charpentier. 
 Agassiz did not realize the impression made on many 
 by the impropriety of his publishing before de Charpen- 
 
i845-] RETURNS ALL THE SPECIMENS. j 5 ; 
 
 tier a volume of "Etudes des Glaciers." Many ol 
 Agassiz's best friends regretted it sincerely, and there 
 is no doubt that it was a mistake on his part not to have 
 waited until de Charpentier had issued his volume. 
 
 A last duty remained to perform before saying good 
 by to Neuchatel. It was to return all the specimens oi 
 fossils so generously lent by public establishments and 
 private individuals for his paloeontological works. 
 was not a small undertaking; for Agassiz, with his 
 eagerness to collect all the material he wanted, asked 
 for and collected around him a quantity of specimens 
 which he was unable to make use of. However, every- 
 thing was carefully packed and sent safely to its desti- 
 nation with the thanks of the professor. And since that 
 time all such specimens are quoted in both public or 
 private collections as determined by Agassiz; every one 
 being justly proud to have helped the author of the 
 " Poissons fossiles," of the " Echinodermes," and of the 
 " Myes." 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 1846. 
 
 Departure from Neuchatel, March, 1846 — Arrival in Paris and 
 Sojourn at the "Hotel du Jardin du Roi " — "Nouvelles 
 Etudes sur les Glaciers actuels " — The Glacial Theory before 
 the Geological Society of France, at the Meeting of the 6th 
 of April, 1846 — Agassiz's "Catalogue Raisonne des Echino- 
 dermes " — His Work in the " Galerie de Zoologie" and among 
 the Private Collections of Brongniart, de France, Deshayes, 
 d'Orbigny, de Verneuil, etc. — Desor's Presumption, in putting 
 his Name on the Title Page, without Agassiz's Knowledge — At- 
 tentions paid to Agassiz by Thiers — Indirect Offer of Official 
 Positions at Paris declined — Short Visit to England, to meet 
 Charles Lyell — On a Cunard Steamship frOxM Liverpool to 
 Boston. 
 
 At the beginning of March, 1846, Agassiz left Neu- 
 chatel, never to return, except for a single very short 
 visit, of a few days, in 1859. At two o'clock in the 
 morning, he took the stage for Bale, en route for 
 Carlsruhe ; and, notwithstanding the early hour, the 
 post-yard was filled with his many friends, colleagues, 
 and students, the last coming in a body, with torch- 
 lights, and giving him a parting serenade. Although 
 he spoke of his return, and of resuming his scientific 
 work at Neuchatel, every one felt that the departure 
 was momentous, and that Neuchatel was losing the 
 man who had given it a world-wide reputation as a 
 
 258 
 
1846.] DEPARTURE FROM NEUCHATEL. 259 
 
 centre of science, never before equalled in Switzerland, 
 in connection with such a small town, such a limited 
 academy, and in so short a time. 
 
 In order to understand what follows, it is necessary 
 to say a few words concerning the material difficulties 
 under which Agassiz laboured during his fourteen 
 years' residence at Neuchatel. His very small salary, 
 of eighty louis (Neuchatel currency), and a few years 
 later of one hundred and sixty louis, was hardly suffi- 
 cient to defray his household expenses, even if he had 
 limited them strictly to his family. But very soon he 
 largely increased all his expenditure, both for his pub- 
 lications and for his assistants. At first, his sister and 
 wife helped him, and his friend Louis de Coulon assisted 
 him in bibliographic work, and in collecting under his 
 direction. But when he became interested in glaciers 
 and the glacial question, it was too great a task for 
 his voluntary assistants, and, in addition, new duties 
 obliged Mrs. Agassiz to give up drawing and writ- 
 ing for her husband. If Agassiz was an indefat- 
 igable worker, when busied in the observation of 
 new facts, he was too impatient, and always carried 
 too far by new schemes, to write books, or even 
 memoirs. As he himself says, it was very difficult 
 for him to sit down at his desk and write all he had 
 observed and knew on a subject. "Je ne suis pas un 
 cul de plomb comme Richard Owen," the great English 
 palaeontologist. He always envied this faculty, so 
 strongly characteristic of Professor Owen. But it was 
 vain for him to try to acquire it, for he soon fretted, 
 was extremely nervous, and finally left the work to 
 
26o LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. xi. 
 
 others to finish, or abandoned it altogether, never 
 returning to it. With such a disposition, Agassiz was 
 much in need of a secretary and assistants able to 
 understand his instructions and to carry out and finish 
 his numerous schemes. He successively added several 
 assistants. In fact, the apartment of the professor 
 was a sort of " Pension bourgeoise " for naturalists and 
 artists ; for, besides the regular inmates, there was a 
 constant arrival of friends, and of members of the 
 Agassiz family, who were quite numerous around Neu- 
 chatel, and of foreign naturalists, such as the two 
 Schimpers and the two Braun brothers. Of course, 
 the one hundred and sixty louis of his salary were soon 
 exhausted in keeping such an establishment, and needed 
 additions of money were lacking all the time. Agassiz 
 very quickly expended his share of his inheritance from 
 his father, and then all his family were obliged to help 
 him ; which they did at first with pleasure, and after- 
 ward with some reluctance. 
 
 The Neuchatel burgesses, and more especially all 
 the wealthy families, who had contributed to the sub- 
 scription for founding his professorship of natural 
 history, were ready to help him, and very generously 
 contributed money for each new scheme brought be- 
 fore them by Agassiz. But as soon as one scheme 
 was fairly started, another, absolutely unexpected, 
 was added to the burden. And, as one of the 
 most liberal of those naturalists of Neuchatel says, 
 " We were ready to help Agassiz with money ; but 
 there was no end to his constant needs. He had 
 already expended, in advance, all we were glad to 
 
1846.] GREAT LUMP OF GOLD. 261 
 
 offer him, ct e'etait toujours a recommencer." In fact, 
 Agassiz had exhausted all his credit, when he left Neu- 
 chatel, having made use, one after another, of each of 
 his friends, and of his whole family. And all for 
 science ! for he had few needs, and was by no means 
 extravagant in personal expenses. Always generous 
 when he had money in his hands, he distributed it to 
 his assistants, draughtsmen, and lithographers, never 
 thinking of himself and of his own family, until all 
 others had been supplied. On the whole, Agassiz was 
 a very rare character, — always hopeful, but a great 
 dreamer; and he acted, all his life, as if he knew with 
 certainty that a great lump of gold belonging to him 
 was lying somewhere behind an enormous boulder, and 
 that he had only to extend his hand behind the boulder, 
 and fill his pockets with as much as he wanted. And, 
 curiously enough, this dream of his was fully realized, 
 only it was at the end of his life, and for the benefit of 
 his children. And so was fulfilled Humboldt's predic- 
 tion, in a letter dated Berlin, June 17, 1838, that "he was 
 certain that there was gold somewhere in his polished 
 rocks. I should like to find the secret which you 
 possess, to work all those mines." For it is under, and 
 even in, polished rocks of the great North American 
 glacier extending from Greenland to Minnesota that 
 Agassiz's great gold lump lay. 
 
 When Agassiz left Neuchatel, it was arranged that 
 Desor and Girard should pack up about two hundred 
 volumes, — the most necessary works for reference on 
 glaciers and fossil echinoderms, — and leave all the 
 rest of Agassiz's already large library in charge of 
 
262 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. xi. 
 
 William Hiiber, the librarian, with directions to con- 
 tinue the bibliographic collection of titles for Agassiz's 
 great manuscript list, forming his " Bibliographia Zool- 
 ogioe et Geologiae," and then hasten to Paris to meet 
 Agassiz on his arrival there. 
 
 The son, Alexander, then a boy of eleven years, was 
 left at Neuchatel, to pursue his studies at the College. 
 The two daughters and Mrs. Agassiz were already liv- 
 ing at Carlsruhe with Alexander Braun, the always 
 trusted friend of Agassiz and the excellent brother of 
 his wife. Having disposed as satisfactorily as possible 
 of all his affairs and the numerous persons more or less 
 dependent on him, Agassiz took his departure, with a 
 heavy heart and great anxiety as to his future. He 
 knew too well that it was impossible for him to return 
 and assume again the same position, — a position inad- 
 equate to his wants and his aspirations as a savant and 
 as the head of a family. The world was open before 
 him, to be sure ; but all was uncertainty. However, his 
 will was strong to conquer a position ; and with that 
 determination constantly in view, he began life again at 
 the ripe age of thirty-nine years. 
 
 After a few days passed with his family at Carlsruhe, 
 Agassiz arrived in Paris at the end of March, stay- 
 ing, as he was accustomed to do, at the old " Hotel 
 du Jardin du Roi," rue Copau (now rue Lacepede), 
 near the Jardin des Plantes. There he was received by 
 Desor and Girard, to whom were added Karl Vogt, at 
 that time a resident of the hotel, and Dickmann, one of 
 Agassiz's artists. 
 
 At once Agassiz started several works ; first, an 
 
1846.] ETUDES SUR GLACIERS. 263 
 
 octavo volume on the glaciers, and second, a " Cata- 
 logue raisonne des Echinodermes vivants et fossils." 
 After his publication of " Etudes sur les Glaciers ' 
 (1840), Agassiz began in 1841 a new series of re- 
 searches and observations on the structure of ice, the 
 temperature, the annual progression, and the daily 
 movement of glaciers ; and it was the result of these 
 four years of constant study on the glacier of the Aar 
 that he wished to present to the scientific world. 
 
 A well-known Paris publisher, M. Victor Masson, 
 purchased Agassiz's manuscript, the first fruit of his 
 arduous toil that Agassiz had succeeded in thus dispos- 
 ing of; but, unhappily, the transaction proved an un- 
 fortunate one for the publisher, who lost heavily, the 
 failure being due partly to political trouble in France in 
 1848, a short time after the work was issued, partly to 
 its incompleteness. According to the announcement, it 
 was to be composed of three parts, of which the first 
 only was published ; the contemplated second part was 
 to be furnished by Arnold Guyot, on the distribution of 
 boulders round the Alps, and the third part, on the geo- 
 graphical distribution of old glaciers all the world over, 
 by E. Desor. Guyot and Desor contented themselves 
 with a few short papers, published in the "Bulletin de la 
 Societe des Sciences Naturelles de Neuchatel," 1847, on 
 the erratic boulders of the basins of the Rhone, Rhine, 
 and the Pennine Alps ; and in the " Bulletin de la 
 Societe Geologique de France," on the glacial deposits 
 of Scandinavia, and the erratic or Quaternary of North 
 America. 
 
 As usual, Desor wrote the first part, under Agassiz's 
 
264 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. xi. 
 
 direction and supervision. Chapter by chapter, Agassiz 
 looked over the manuscript, correcting with pencil, and 
 indicating additions to be made. The manuscript was 
 finished before Agassiz left Paris, and went to the 
 printer between November, 1846, and April, 1847; fi rst 
 under the direction of Desor, who left Paris at the end 
 of February, 1847, an d afterward under the direction 
 of Charles Martins, who wrote the introduction and fin- 
 ished the excellent list of works on the present glaciers. 
 Thus the volume is a rather composite one, through the 
 collaboration of Desor and Martins, and as a whole, is 
 less important than Agassiz's first volume on the gla- 
 ciers, although it contains many new facts. The truth 
 is, that Agassiz and Desor were not physicists ; and 
 although Martins and Bravais, who were good physi- 
 cists, helped them with their advice at the glacier of 
 the Aar, they failed to recognize the plasticity of gla- 
 ciers, as Bishop Rendu and James Forbes had done 
 in the case of the Savoy glaciers ; and it was reserved 
 for the great English physicist, John Tyndall, to solve 
 the problem of the conversion of snow into ice by pres- 
 sure, to find the cause of glacier motion in pressure, 
 regelation, crystallization, and internal liquefaction, — a 
 splendid discovery which was made between 1856 and 
 1859, an d published in i860, in a work entitled "Gla- 
 ciers of the Alps." 
 
 Beside the publication of the volume on the glaciers, 
 Agassiz, during his stay. in Paris, greatly advanced the 
 acceptance of the glacial doctrine by all unprejudiced 
 geologists. In a communication made before the Geo- 
 logical Society of France, at the meeting of the 6th of 
 
1S46.] GLACIAL THEORY IN PARIS. 265 
 
 April, 1846, he discussed, with more care, if possible, 
 than usual, all the plain facts observed on the present 
 glaciers, as regards polishing of rocks, directions of 
 striated marks, " cailloux stries, boue glaciaire," trans- 
 portation of boulders, etc. For we must keep in mind 
 that everything was contested and often denied by 
 the opponents of the glacial theory. Agassiz had 
 before him, however, an audience suited to his wishes. 
 De Beaumont, the great adversary of glaciers, was 
 there ; also de Beaumont's collaborator and right arm, 
 Dufrenoy, besides some partisans of his own views, 
 among them Constant Prevost, Deshayes, Martins, Bra- 
 vais, Dollfus-Ausset, d'Omalius d'Halloy, and Major 
 Leblanc. It was a very important meeting, for Agassiz 
 was able to answer every objection. De Beaumont, 
 who was always very cunning when in the presence of 
 original and able observers, preserved a discreet silence, 
 and let all the heat of the discussion rest on Dufrenoy, 
 contenting himself with smiling and nodding his ap- 
 proval. It was a curious duel. Dufrenoy, always scep- 
 tical, but amiable, and rather inclined to be humorous, 
 asked if the " cailloux stries" were truly a good indica- 
 tion of the existence of old glaciers. "Yes!" was the 
 answer. " They are the characteristic fossils of a gla- 
 cier." Little by little, the audience of eighty persons, 
 all good geologists, came round to Agassiz's views. It 
 was a marked success; so much so, that de Beaumont 
 left the room before the end of the meeting ; and 
 Dufrenoy, when the meeting was over, said aloud to 
 Agassiz, referring to his collaboration and compan- 
 ionship with de Beaumont during twenty-five years, 
 
266 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. xi. 
 
 i 
 
 " Croycz-vous que j'ai ete toujours a la noce avec lui ; " 
 showing how much he had to endure from the disposi- 
 tion of his colleague in the construction of the Geological 
 Map of France. 
 
 On this day the glacial theory at last gained the 
 ascendency in France. De Beaumont, for two years 
 longer, continued an underhanded opposition by means 
 of some of his favourite pupils, Messrs. Durocher and 
 Frappoli. But Charles Martins, a remarkable speaker 
 and good writer, took the question where Agassiz left it, 
 and easily extinguished all opposition. Now it may seem 
 strange to many that such a clear question, with such 
 admirable and visible proofs, should have encountered 
 such a powerful opposition, and arraigned against it such 
 geologists as Alexander von Humboldt, von Buch, Elie 
 de Beaumont, and Murchison. Geology is too vast for 
 any one man, whatever his intellectual capacity and 
 knowledge, to be a good judge and an expert on all the 
 questions which arise. At the beginning of the crea- 
 tion of modern geology it was the custom for every 
 one to give his opinions on each point. In this way, 
 a number of errors were accepted as facts ; and it 
 required generations of able observers to remove these 
 great obstacles to the progress of geology. The belief 
 in the transportation of boulders by great mud currents, 
 in connection with the universal deluge of the Mosaic 
 tradition, was so deeply implanted in the minds, even 
 of savants, that it was not an easy task for Venetz, 
 de Charpentier, and Agassiz to uproot it. It laid upon 
 them a quarter of a century of hard work and harder 
 fighting. 
 
1846.] IN THE "GALER/E DE ZOOLOG/E." 267 
 
 From the time of his first establishment at Neuchatel, 
 Agassiz had taken great interest in the echinoderms, 
 publishing, from 1833 to 1845, numerous and most 
 important memoirs on the subject. His stay at Paris 
 was an opportunity long looked for, and he seized 
 upon it with his usual enthusiasm. All the public and 
 private collections were at his complete disposal. The 
 Jardin des Plantes, with its vast wealth, known and 
 unknown, was thrown open to him. The old gallery 
 of zoology, just opposite the " Pitie Hospital' had its 
 best room barricaded ; and drawers filled with speci- 
 mens, barrels of all shapes, containing collections of 
 marine animals from all parts of the world, and never 
 opened until now, were brought from cellars and gar- 
 rets, and arranged in front of the usual collection of 
 echinoderms exhibited to the public. Agassiz placed 
 the specimens on long tables ; and there, with the help 
 of his friend Valenciennes, professor of conchology, 
 and his assistant, Louis Rousseau, — a brother of the 
 great landscape painter, Theodore Rousseau, — he began 
 classification and determination, dictating to his secre- 
 tary, Desor, the descriptions of families, genera, and 
 species. Sometimes his enthusiasm was raised to per- 
 fect rapture, when some new species or a new genus 
 was found in one of the barrels brought up from the 
 Pacific Ocean by exploring expeditions of the end of 
 the last or the beginning of this century. It was 
 interesting and also amusing to see him with a sea- 
 urchin in one hand, and a lens in the other, analyzing 
 each organ and each part of the animal, with that accu- 
 racy of description for which he was justly celebrated ; 
 
268 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [ciiAr. xi. 
 
 and after looking at the label of the barrel, he would 
 sometimes exclaim, " Why ! it was collected by Ouoy 
 and Gaimard, or by Hurnbron, or some one else, on the 
 shore of Tasmania or New Zealand, during the voyage 
 round the world of de Freycinet, or Dupere, or Dumont 
 d'Urville," etc. Happiness beamed on his face; and 
 satisfaction was seen in every movement, exclamation, 
 and posture. What an admirer of natural history 
 objects! It was impossible to resist feeling interest in 
 his work. He excited the curiosity of every one in the 
 gallery, and even the guardians and porters were deeply 
 affected and attracted around the professor. The guar- 
 dian, or janitor, named Philippe Pothau, so well known 
 by all zoologists who have studied, or even only passed 
 through the collections of the Jardin des Plantes, was 
 in ecstasy and rapture before Agassiz. He was 
 not accustomed to see such enthusiasm, Valenciennes 
 being the most prosaic and immovable of men, and all 
 the other professors of the Jardin des Plantes being 
 either very sceptical, or too busy to pay much attention 
 to the treasures under their guardianship. 
 
 The private collections at Paris were then more 
 numerous and more important than at the present 
 time. The impulse given to the study of palaeontol- 
 ogy and geology by Cuvier and his school had not yet 
 died out. His principal collaborator Alexandre Bron- 
 gniart was still alive ; and on two successive Sundays he 
 himself exhibited to Agassiz his fine collection of fossil 
 echinoderms, some of which were the types described 
 by Lamarck and himself in his celebrated " Geologie 
 des Environs de Paris." Def ranee, one of the ablest 
 
1846.] CATALOGUE DES ECHINODERMES. 269 
 
 and most modest of all French palaeontologists of the 
 first half of the nineteenth century, was also still alive, 
 and with his printed list of fossil remains entitled, 
 "Tableau des corps organises fossiles," etc., in his 
 hands, he pointed out each of the echinoderms to 
 Agassiz. Besides those two collections, so important 
 on account of the types they contained, Agassiz studied, 
 one after another, the fine collections of Alcide d'Or- 
 bigny, Deshayes, Michelin, Graves, de Verneuil, d'Ar- 
 chiac, as well as the public collections of the Ecole des 
 Mines, la Sorbonne, and the Ecole Normale. It was a 
 rare enjoyment for Agassiz. 
 
 He himself wrote, without any aid from his secre- 
 tary, the " Resume d'un travail d'ensemble sur l'orga- 
 nisation, la classification et le developpement progressif 
 des Echinodermes dans la Serie des terrains " ; a mas- 
 terly review of his knowledge of the Echinidae, and 
 read it before the Academy of Science of the Institute, 
 of which he had been a corresponding member since 
 April, 1839. Printed first in the " Comptes-rendus de 
 l'Academie," Vol. XXIII., it was reprinted with very few 
 alterations and addition in the " Annales des Sciences 
 naturelles," as an introduction to the " Catalogue rai- 
 sonne des families, des genres et des especes de la 
 classe des echinodermes, par MM. L. Agassiz et E. 
 Desor." The secretary and assistant of a savant has 
 no scientific right to authorship in the publications 
 made by the savant, though generally the savant says 
 in the introduction, or in the body of the work, that he 
 has been helped by his assistant. Agassiz refers several 
 times in the introduction of the " Catalogue raisonne 
 
270 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap, xi, 
 
 des Echinides," to Desor and his help ; and it was the 
 only recognition really due. But Desor, without asking 
 permission, took upon himself to add his name, as one 
 of the two authors of the " Catalogue," a high-handed 
 proceeding which did not come to the knowledge of 
 Agassiz, until May, 1848, when he received the fifty 
 separate copies printed for his private use. It is not 
 surprising that Agassiz resented the presumption and 
 expressed his disapproval in his great work: ''Contribu- 
 tions to the Natural History of the United States of 
 America," Vol. I., p. 97, Boston, 1857, i n the following 
 terms : " Catalogue raisonne, etc. I quote this paper 
 under my name alone, because that of Mr. Desor, which 
 is added to it, has no right there. It was added by 
 him, after I had left Europe, not only without authority, 
 but even without my learning it, for a whole year. . . . 
 This is one of the most extraordinary cases of plagiarism 
 I know of." Being the most important witness in the 
 case, and the only survivor of all those who had anything 
 to do with that "Catalogue," I shall dispose in a few 
 words of the claims made rather cavalierly by Desor in 
 his " Synopsis des Echinodermes fossiles," p. xv, Re- 
 ponse a M. Agassiz, Paris, 1858. 
 
 Not only was I present many times when Agassiz 
 dictated to Desor the descriptions of genera and species, 
 and accompanied him often in his visits to the private 
 and public collections of echinids in Paris, but it was 
 to me that the manuscript was entrusted by Desor when 
 he started for America, on the last day of February, 
 1847. About two-thirds of the " Catalogue " — the first 
 eight sheets — had been printed under the supervision 
 
1846.] CATALOGUE RAISONNE, ETC. 271 
 
 of Desor. I had to correct the proofs of sheets 9, 10, 
 and 11, and besides to write not only the "Addenda," 
 but also the entire " Distribution geologique dcs echi- 
 nides fossiles," with many notes and corrections. The 
 memoir was not issued in separate form until January, 
 1848, and it was I who delivered it to Agassiz at 
 Cambridge, in May, 1848. I remember perfectly the 
 amazement with which Agassiz saw the name of Desor 
 on the cover as one of the authors, and as Agassiz 
 knew the part I also had taken in the memoir, he said : 
 " But you have more right than Desor to put also your 
 name as one of the authors, for you did it entirely with- 
 out compensation of any sort, only in kindness and 
 friendship." On the whole, it was very presumptuous 
 in Desor, who had assumed the position of Maire du 
 Palais, ruling at his will, not only Agassiz's household, 
 but also distributing scientific authorship according to 
 his fancy or private interest. The part taken by him 
 was simply that of a subordinate. Entirely in the pay 
 of Agassiz, he simply wrote, mainly under Agassiz's 
 dictation, the characteristics ; added the description of 
 about one hundred species — more or less — and three 
 or four new genera, and also corrected a few errors, 
 which was all a part of his duty as secretary. Agassiz 
 had begun his studies and publications on the cchino- 
 derms five or six years before Desor came to Neuchatel, 
 and when he became Agassiz's secretary he knew abso- 
 lutely nothing of echinoderms, or even of zoology. 
 
 The " Catalogue raisonne," etc., notwithstanding its 
 many imperfections, marked great progress when it was 
 published; and has, ever since, served as the basis 
 
272 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. xi. 
 
 of classification of the echinoderms. It is constantly 
 quoted, and will continue to be quoted, just as the 
 " Animaux sans vertebres ' of Lamarck is ; and it 
 is one of the great services rendered by Agassiz to 
 zoology. 
 
 Agassiz was the recipient of all sorts of attention dur- 
 ing his stay in Paris. He met many old friends, not only 
 Parisians, but even men from the provinces and from 
 foreign countries, who came to bid him farewell. M. 
 Esprit Requien, the celebrated director of the museum 
 at Avignon, who had communicated all his magnificent 
 collection of fossil fishes, more especially those from the 
 celebrated locality of Aix-en-Provence, for Agassiz's 
 great monograph on the " Poissons fossiles," took 
 lodging at the same hotel, the " Jardin du Roi," in 
 order to see as much of Agassiz as possible. Requien 
 was a rare type of savant : being an archaeologist, a 
 numismatologist, and a botanist and zoologist, and a 
 friend to every one with whom he came in contact, from 
 Stendhal (Beyle), Prosper Merimee, Adolphe Thiers, 
 De Candolle, and Alcide d'Orbigny, to Agassiz. He 
 possessed that exuberance of word and gesture so char- 
 acteristic of the Provencal people and so well portrayed 
 by one of their own writers, Alphonse Daudet. Agassiz 
 much enjoyed his visit. There was another Provencal, 
 Adolphe Thiers, who also was much attracted by the 
 charm of Agassiz's society. They had previously met; 
 but it was during Agassiz's present stay in Paris that a 
 true friendship ripened between the two men, and their 
 later correspondence showed many points of resem- 
 blance and common interest; both having an unbounded 
 
1846.] FRIENDSHIP WITH A. THIERS. 273 
 
 confidence in their power of conversation and public 
 speech, and being extremely fond of applause and 
 congenial society ; they soon came to appreciate one 
 another, and from this time Thiers, influenced by his 
 conversations with Agassiz, became devoted to natural 
 history. At that time, however, he had no leisure to 
 give to it, being absorbed by his history of the Consulate 
 and the Empire, and afterward by his political positions ; 
 but as soon as he was free after his Presidency of the 
 third French Republic, he turned to science as a favour- 
 ite study and consecrated the greater part of the last 
 years of his life to the history of the earth. 
 
 There also came to Paris at this time, whether or not 
 attracted by Agassiz it is impossible to say, one who 
 had been a not over-scrupulous opponent of Agassiz 
 on the glaciers, — no other than James D. Forbes, of 
 Edinburgh, — and an attempt was made in his name to 
 effect a reconciliation. After the publication by Agassiz, 
 in 1842, of the history of his difficulties with Forbes, 
 the scientific world, at least on the European continent, 
 had pronounced against the method used by Forbes 
 during and after his visits to the glacier of the Aar as 
 Agassiz's guest. A common friend, Elie de Beaumont, 
 invited Agassiz to a great dinner party to meet Forbes, 
 insisting upon the desire on the part of Forbes to 
 forget the past and be friends again ; but Agassiz very 
 politely, though firmly, declined the invitation, feeling 
 that the attacks of Forbes had been marked by too 
 great impropriety to allow of further friendly relations. 
 
 During his stay in Paris, it occurred to several of 
 Agassiz's friends and acquaintances, that he might be 
 
274 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. xi. 
 
 induced to settle there permanently. Nothing would 
 have been easier for the French government than to 
 secure his services, if not at once, at least after his 
 engagement with the Lowell Institute in Boston had 
 been filled, and his promises to send collections to 
 Berlin and Neuchatel, in return for the advance money 
 he had received from the king of Prussia, had been 
 accomplished. For several reasons, the idea of his per- 
 manent residence in Paris was not to the taste of the 
 leaders of natural history ; although they feasted him, 
 and gave him a Physiological prize of three hundred 
 dollars at the annual meeting of the Institute of France, 
 they feared, that if he became their colleague, he would 
 soon over-shadow them all. In fact, jealousy was at the 
 root of the affair ; and although they loudly professed 
 their admiration for the man himself and his work, and 
 were ready to help him in some of his scientific work, 
 they took no proper steps in the direction of keeping 
 him. Nothing was offered in a direct way by the 
 French government; but indirectly it was hinted that 
 if he wanted to settle in Paris, official positions with 
 salary amounting to six thousand francs per annum 
 would be granted to him. Agassiz declined this doubt- 
 ful offer, and it was probably a great relief to the official 
 zoologists and geologists to know that he was not to 
 become their rival, and possibly their leader and master 
 as well. 
 
 A Swiss artist of Neuchatel, Fritz Berthoud, then a 
 resident in Paris, took advantage of Agassiz's stay to 
 obtain a full-length portrait of him. The picture, now 
 in the museum at Neuchatel, represents Agassiz and 
 
1846.] VISIT TO ENGLAND. 275 
 
 his secretary Desor ; but the portrait of Agassiz is not 
 good, and the picture, as a work of art, is poor, showing 
 only the good will of the artist. 
 
 At the end of August, Agassiz left Paris, going first 
 to London and then to Southampton, where he attended 
 the meeting of the British Association for the Advance- 
 ment of Sciences, the 10th of September. It was im- 
 portant for him to see Charles Lyell, who had lately 
 returned from his two visits to North America, 1841- 
 1842 and 1845, on June 26, and who had prepared the 
 way for Agassiz, both with Mr. John A. Lowell, the 
 director of the Lowell Institute at Boston, and with 
 American savants in general, as to what might be ex- 
 pected from the visit of such a master and enthusiast 
 in natural history. 
 
 During his short stay in England, Agassiz saw plainly 
 that, although all the English leaders of sciences were 
 extremely courteous and friendly to him, it was abso- 
 lutely useless to expect from them the offer of any 
 scientific position. His habit of going ahead, without 
 regard to the consequences, was too much for English 
 precision. They admired Agassiz ; but that was all. 
 Some, even, were ready to help him in a limited 
 pecuniary way, and truly loved the savant, but the 
 " sans-fagon " of Agassiz they could not sanction. 
 
 At the end of September Agassiz embarked at Liv- 
 erpool, on a steamer bound to Boston. The passage, 
 as it is usually at about the time of the autumn equi- 
 nox, was extremely rough ; so much so that it was very 
 much prolonged, and created apprehension as to the 
 safety of the steamer. The newspapers even announced 
 
276 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. xi. 
 
 that the steamer was lost; and lamentations on the death 
 of Agassiz were printed and circulated all through Swit- 
 zerland: several of Agassiz's friends and admirers shed 
 tears on reading the announcement of his tragical and 
 premature death. "What a miserable end," says one of 
 his best Swiss friends, " for poor Agassiz ! He was 
 much too valuable a savant to perish in the middle 
 of the ocean." l Happily, the report was without foun- 
 dation ; but during the difficult crossing of the Atlantic 
 Agassiz had full time to realize his position. He had 
 left Europe much discouraged and in an extremely 
 serious mood. During the past twenty years, he had 
 acquired a great reputation, but he had had to pay 
 very dear for it. Not only he had worked hard, and 
 had even gone so far as to endanger his social posi- 
 tion, but all his numerous publications had involved 
 pecuniary losses, with the exception of the fishes of 
 Martius and Spix of Brazil, and his two works now in 
 the press in Paris, on the glaciers and the echinoderms. 
 He had contracted debts which must be paid ; and his 
 position at Neuchatel was on this account no longer 
 tenable. Besides, he had formed the habit of having 
 six, eight, and ten persons under his control, to help him 
 in his works as assistants, secretary, artists, and lithog- 
 raphers. He had a family of three children to provide 
 
 1 These two sentences may seem, now, rather melodramatic, but they 
 well reflect the impression really produced. It must be remembered that, 
 in 1846, the crossing of the Atlantic in steamships was in its infancy, 
 many extremely serious accidents were then quite common, and steamers 
 disappeared without leaving traces of any sort after them. Besides, in 
 the centre of the continent, as Switzerland is, a journey to America was 
 considered a great and dangerous undertaking. 
 
1846.] OAT A CUNARD STEAMSHIP. 277 
 
 for and an invalid wife whose health was a cause of 
 great apprehension to all her friends. In addition, his 
 stay in Paris and in England had dissipated all hope, 
 if he had entertained any, of getting there official posi- 
 tions lucrative enough to satisfy his numerous wants 
 and pecuniary obligations. 
 
 Success in America was for him a necessity, as he 
 plainly saw, and he resolved to conquer, and bravely and 
 nobly to meet his destiny, whatever came. The first 
 thing for him to do was to master the English language 
 sufficiently to allow him to speak in public and be under- 
 stood. Ever since his first visit to England in 1834 he 
 had practised more or less in translating and speaking 
 English ; but he knew very well, from his various 
 attempts, how difficult it was for him to make himself 
 understood among his English friends. Lyell had told 
 him that it was useless to lecture in America in the 
 French or German languages ; for those two languages 
 then were used in very narrow limits, and if he wished 
 to make an impression on the American public, he must 
 speak good English. 
 
 During his long journey across the Atlantic, Agassiz 
 began in earnest, not only speaking English all the 
 time, but committing to memory English senteuces and 
 repeating them aloud before any one who had the 
 patience to hear him. The captain of the steamer 
 said, " I have never had such a passenger as you, 
 Professor Agassiz " ; and like every one else, he was 
 charmed with the great Swiss naturalist. Here again 
 Agassiz's great memory helped him, although no longer 
 so elastic as it had been in his youth ; he soon knew a 
 
278 LOUIS AGASSTZ. [chap. xi. 
 
 sufficient number of sentences and words to allow him 
 to attempt public speaking, as we shall presently see. 
 However, it was too late in life for him to become a 
 complete master of the English language, as he was of 
 the German. He never spoke correct English, and he 
 always retained a strong French accent, which was not 
 without some charm to his listeners. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 1846 (continued)-i%4rf . 
 
 Arrival in America, and Reception by Mr. John A. Lowell — 
 Condition of Natural History in the United States — His 
 First Visit to New York — His Acquaintance with Dr. Samuel 
 Morton, of Philadelphia — Collections of Captain Wilkes 
 made during his Expedition round the World, seen at Wash- 
 ington — Science at the Capital of the United States — 
 Agassiz's First Series of Lectures before the Lowell Institute 
 at Boston — His Success — A Course on the Glaciers, in French 
 
 — Frank de Pourtales joins him — Charleston, South Carolina 
 
 — His Observations on the Negroes — His Disapproval of Sla- 
 very — Arrival at New York of his two Assistants, Desor and 
 Girard. — Establishment at East Boston — Sickness of Agassiz 
 
 — His Hospitality — A Visit to Niagara Falls — On Board the 
 United States Coast Survey Steamer, the "Bibb" — Arrival 
 of Minister Charles Louis Philippe Christinat — First Dif- 
 ficulties with his Secretary — Two Letters to J. Marcou, 
 extending an Invitation to join him. 
 
 One fine morning in the first week of October, 1846, 
 a stranger recently disembarked was seen in the streets 
 of Boston, looking to the right and left, in some aston- 
 ishment, but steadily making his way to Pemberton 
 Square, a rectangle with a garden in the centre, and 
 surrounded by fine three-storied brick houses, at that 
 time a very aristocratic part of the city, recalling many 
 squares and circles of the London West End. After 
 looking at the numbers of several houses, the foreigner 
 
 279 
 
28o LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. xii. 
 
 pulled the bell at the door of Mr. John A. Lowell, who, 
 on opening the door, was surprised to have a stranger, 
 with a strong foreign accent, ask if Mr. Lowell was at 
 home. The astonishment was quickly changed into 
 undisguised satisfaction when the stranger added : "I — 
 a-m P-r-o-f-es-s-or A-g-a-a-ss-i-z," with the drawling pro- 
 nunciation so characteristic of Romand or French Swit- 
 zerland, and more specially of Neuchatel. Mr. Lowell 
 very cordially extended both hands, and congratulated 
 him on his safe arrival ; and, in this auspicious manner, 
 Agassiz made his entry into American life, and was 
 launched into American society. 
 
 Lowell, with his keen eyes, his knowledge of Euro- 
 pean life and society, his association with savants, was 
 very favourably impressed by Agassiz. He saw at once 
 that his friends, Charles and Lady Lyell, had not over- 
 strained the praise they had bestowed on the scientific 
 worth of the savant they had so highly recommended 
 to him ; and from that first day he became an ardent 
 supporter, and soon after a most intimate friend and 
 counsellor, of Agassiz. 
 
 This day was certainly one of the happiest of Agas- 
 siz's life. A new life was opened to him at a moment 
 of great mental depression and despondency, the nat- 
 ural result of the difficult position in which he was 
 placed, both pecuniarily and socially. 
 
 The moment of his arrival in the New World was 
 particularly fortunate and well timed. Until then the 
 United States had developed without borrowing much 
 from Europe. After the founding of the New Eng- 
 land and Virginia colonies and the war of indepen- 
 
1846-47-] SCIENCE IN THE UNITED STATES. 281 
 
 dcncc, American society, isolated and separated by the 
 broad and stormy Atlantic, had been left to its own 
 resources. At first a new society is necessarily limited 
 to material progress, with sound moral and religious 
 training ; but sciences and the fine arts are not yet 
 needed. Some scattered naturalists had here and there 
 sprung up, but were not appreciated in proportion to 
 their real merits, and were obliged to publish their 
 observations in Europe, as was the case with the great 
 ornithologist, Audubon. However, now that the great 
 Napoleonic wars were over, a sort of revival in scien- 
 tific researches and studies had begun. The American 
 savants were not numerous enough to influence society ; 
 but a general desire to make scientific discoveries and 
 to try what Americans could do for themselves in this 
 field of human knowledge, illustrated by Buffon, Linne, 
 Cuvier, Lamarck, de Candolle, etc., had already begun 
 to exhibit signs of activity. Local scientific societies 
 had sprung up at Philadelphia, Boston, New York, and 
 Washington, and essays in scientific periodical publica- 
 tion, although not prosperous, because as yet a little 
 premature, had shown that American savants, and 
 especially American geologists, were desirous to enter 
 the arena. 
 
 Curiously enough, science entered America led by 
 geology. To be sure, botany, ornithology, conchology, 
 entomology, and other branches of zoology, had some 
 representatives scattered all along the Atlantic borders, 
 and even as far west as New Harmony (then in the Indian 
 Territory) in the Ohio Valley, but they were not only 
 isolated, but also without the support of the people. 
 
232 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. xii. 
 
 Public opinion did not encourage them. This was not 
 the case with geology. People in general, and agricult- 
 urists in particular, soon showed an eager desire to know 
 the resources of the soils, the rocks, and the mines. 
 Geological surveys were started at the expense of the 
 State in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsyl- 
 vania, New Jersey, the New England States, New 
 York, and Ohio. A desire to agree on points of classi- 
 fication and to know one another brought together the 
 state geologists, who founded in 1840 the "Association 
 of American Geologists," the first national scientific 
 organization, and which held its meetings at different 
 places in the Union. 
 
 The two visits of Lyell in 1841 and 1845, and the 
 important journey of de Verneuil in 1846, among the 
 palaeozoic formations from the State of New York and 
 Canada, to the Ohio Valley, the Upper Mississippi 
 River, and Lake Superior, had given a strong impulse 
 to geological researches, in bringing about the much 
 needed comparison with European classification and 
 synchronism. The field was well prepared, if not 
 zoologically, at least palaeontologically, to receive one of 
 the greatest palaeontologists hitherto produced by Europe. 
 The coming of Agassiz was anticipated with great joy 
 by all American naturalists, and the more so, because at 
 first his stay was announced to be only temporary. 
 
 After a few weeks spent in Boston, making the ac- 
 quaintance of the Boston naturalists, and visiting the 
 surrounding country, more especially the seashores and 
 beaches, Agassiz went to New Haven, New York, 
 Princeton, Philadelphia, Washington, and Albany. In 
 
1846-47] FIRST VISIT TO NEW YORK. 283 
 
 this, his first experience, everything was new to him, 
 — the people, the natural history, and American cus- 
 toms and society, — and his first impressions were most 
 encouraging. With his extraordinary penetration and 
 far-seeing vision, he realized what stores of scientific 
 problems were in readiness, wanting only a little push 
 to start the whole machinery of thorough researches 
 over half a continent. It was just the work for him; 
 American natural history had found its leader. 
 
 When I said that Agassiz was much encouraged by 
 what he saw of American society, during October and 
 November, 1846, it must not be understood that it was 
 the fashionable world which he saw — rather limited 
 although it was then, in comparison to what it is now. 
 During the first five or six years of his life in America 
 Agassiz paid very little attention to what is called 
 fashionable society ; he even avoided it, reserving his 
 letters of introduction, and taking care to deliver them 
 only at the last moment of his stay in New York and 
 Washington, in order to escape invitations. His time 
 was too precious to allow dissipation of any sort ; so 
 much so, that, on his first day in New York, instead 
 of examining the magnificent bay and great city, he 
 begged his cousin, Auguste Mayor, a resident of Brook- 
 lyn, to take him far up Greenwich Street, to the home 
 of the only American palaeo-ichthyologist, Mr. W. C. 
 Redfield, and there he passed a part of the day, looking 
 at fossil fishes. 
 
 His means did not allow him to go to first-class hotels, 
 and he patronized second- and even third-class houses, 
 or, more accurately, inns, as they were then, at Albany, 
 
2S4 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. xii. 
 
 Philadelphia, and Washington. He readily adapted 
 himself to American fare, except in one particular. 
 Born in a wine country, even the excellent beer of 
 Bavaria, during his long and numerous stays in Ger- 
 many, was never much relished by him ; and to be 
 reduced to ice water and tea was rather hard. However, 
 he was obliged often, too often for his inclination, to do 
 the best he could, contenting himself with an occasional 
 glass of claret, and a cup of black coffee, if obtain- 
 able, which was seldom the case. But as soon as he 
 possessed a home, he provided light red wine and black 
 coffee at luncheon and dinner, and adhered to this 
 custom until the last day of his life. He never drank 
 freely of strong wine, like the Spanish, Madeira, and 
 Portuguese wines, and was averse to liquors of any sorts, 
 excepting a small glass of "Chartreuse" or very old 
 Cognac, when in company. Agassiz came to America 
 too late in life to change this part of his diet. 
 
 At Princeton, Agassiz met, for the first time, Professor 
 Joseph Henry, an American savant, who became one 
 of his best friends and a constant admirer. Professor 
 Asa Gray of Cambridge was there also, at the house of 
 the then most celebrated botanist in the United States, 
 Professor Torrey ; and together Agassiz and Gray 
 started for Philadelphia and Washington. Agassiz 
 knew more of botany than was usual for a zoologist; 
 and Gray, then a young and rising botanist, was very 
 solicitous to please Agassiz. Their friendship grew 
 rapidly, until completely checked by the publication 
 of Darwin's "Origin of Species," in 1859. 
 
 Philadelphia greatly attracted Agassiz. There he met 
 
1846-47-] VISIT TO UWSII/XGTOIV. 285 
 
 Dr. Samuel Morton, the great anthropologist, and an 
 excellent palaeontologist ; a remarkable man, entirely to 
 the taste of Agassiz, through the variety of his knowl- 
 edge and the originality of his discoveries and thought. 
 He also saw Conrad, Lea, Hallowell, Booth, and Frazer, 
 and was, on the whole, well impressed by Philadelphia .11 
 savants. 
 
 At Washington he was surprised by the gigantic 
 scale on which the French engineer, Major Lenfant, 
 had laid out the capital of the United States, by the 
 imposing and beautiful Capitol, and also by the empti- 
 ness of many streets and quarters where building had 
 hardly begun. It was, as it was called then, the " City 
 of Magnificent Distances." Washington was not then 
 the great and beautiful city of the present day. The 
 inhabitants were few ; and the government buildings, 
 except the splendid Capitol, were limited to the White 
 House, the State Department, the War and Navy 
 buildings, and the Patent Office. The Smithsonian 
 Institution existed only on paper ; 1 and the savants 
 were few in number, while the most prominent one, 
 Professor Bache, the already celebrated director of the 
 Coast Survey, was absent on duty. Arriving fresh 
 from the great capital of France, it was a contrast to 
 find science occupying so small a place in the great 
 American republic, at least officially. Mr. Francis 
 Markoe, the chief clerk of the State Department, and 
 secretary of the National Institute, gave him a set of 
 the Transactions of that society ; and to the astonish- 
 
 1 Professor Joseph Henry was not appointed secretary of the Smith- 
 sonian Institution until several months later, on the 3d of 1 December, 1S46. 
 
286 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. xii. 
 
 ment of Agassiz, the three or four small paper-covered 
 parts were far less important in regard to the quality, 
 and even the number of original papers, than his "Bul- 
 letin de la Societe d'Histoire Naturelle de Neuchatel," 
 issued in a very small town of one of the smallest can- 
 tons of Switzerland. The disappointment to one who, 
 a few months before, under the dome of the Mazarin 
 Palace, had received a Monthyon prize of physiology 
 from the Royal Institute of France, may be easily 
 understood. As a compensation, Markoe took Agassiz 
 to the rooms of the Institute, and showed him the large 
 and important collections made by Captain Wilkes dur- 
 ing his scientific expedition round the world, from 1838 
 to 1842. He was more especially impressed by the 
 extraordinarily beautiful and exact drawings of fishes, 
 reptiles, molluscs, and corals, executed from life during 
 the expedition by Mr. Drayton, by far the best artist of 
 natural history objects in America. 
 
 Until this time, all exploring expeditions into the 
 interior of the United States, sent at the expense of 
 government, from the journeys of Lewis and Clarke, 
 Pike, Major Long, Nicolet, Featherstonhaugh, D. D. 
 Owen, to those of Captain Fremont, had had their 
 reports rather meagrely published in regard to plates 
 and natural history drawings. Congress always voted 
 liberal sums to defray the expense of these publications, 
 but they were at that time all done by contract, fall- 
 ing as spoils into the hands of politicians; and the 
 result was the issue of reports disgraceful as re- 
 gards material execution — bad type, bad drawings, bad 
 paper — a state of things most discouraging to all 
 
1846-47] CAPTAIN WILKES EXPEDITION. 287 
 
 the explorers and % savants connected with the govern- 
 ment. 
 
 In order to remedy such a condition, all the reports 
 of the Wilkes Exploring Expedition were placed under 
 the direction of one man, Mr. Drayton, who super- 
 intended the whole publication. But, going from one 
 extreme to another, the Senate, which made the law, in- 
 serted in it a provision by which the number of copies of 
 each volume was limited to two hundred, and distributed 
 exclusively to senators ; while of Captain Fremont's re- 
 port, issued in 1845, ten thousand extra copies were 
 printed for the use of the members of Congress. The 
 immense difference between two hundred and ten thou- 
 sand copies is evident. The result was that Wilkes's 
 reports, being placed exclusively in the hands of sena- 
 tors, no one of whom was a scientific man, or had suf- 
 ficient knowledge of natural history to appreciate their 
 value but distributed them simply on account of the 
 beautiful plates, became extremely rare from the very 
 first. Half of the number of copies was soon entirely 
 lost, and some of the reports were destroyed in a fire at 
 the printing establishment, so that now several of the 
 great quarto volumes and folio atlases of the expedition 
 have become so scarce that it is almost impossible to 
 get copies at any price. 
 
 The report of Fremont, which was defective only in 
 good execution, was furnished with poor engravings, poor 
 plates of fossils, poor paper, and printed from indifferent 
 type. When Agassiz received at Washington, from 
 the hands of Colonel Abert, chief of Topographic Engi- 
 neers, Fremont's report and those of Nicolet, Abeii's 
 
288 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. xii. 
 
 son, D. D. Owen, and Featherstonhaugh, he immedi- 
 ately saw that a great reform was needed to give their 
 true value to all these government reports and publica- 
 tions. On the one hand, Wilkes's report was lost to the 
 scientific public by its scarcity and the mode of distri- 
 bution ; and, on the other hand, Fremont's report and 
 others of the same sort were so badly executed that 
 they were a disgrace to the country. 
 
 From this moment Agassiz began to urge constantly 
 on those in power at Washington the necessity laid upon 
 the United States government to publish only well-exe- 
 cuted volumes, especially in regard to plates of natural 
 history and landscape drawings. He himself set the ex- 
 ample in 1850 in publishing his important exploration of 
 Lake Superior. His efforts, combined with the power- 
 ful help of Professor Bache and of Professor Henry, 
 succeeded in bringing about a much better state of 
 things after 1853, as we shall see. But it was during 
 his first visit to Washington, in 1846, that he laid the 
 foundation for the improvement of the government 
 scientific publications. 
 
 As soon as Agassiz was back in Boston, he again 
 devoted himself to his practice of learning English 
 phrases by heart, and speaking aloud in English in his 
 room in order to be able to deliver his first course of 
 lectures before the Lowell Institute. The subject was 
 " The Plan of the Creation, especially in the Animal 
 Kingdom." It is not surprising that he was much 
 concerned about his first lecture at the beginning of 
 December ; for it was not an easy task to set forth, in a 
 language which he had never before used in public, one 
 
1846-47-] FIRST LECTURE AT BOSTON. 289 
 
 of the most difficult and complicated questions of natural 
 history, but he was so full of his subject that he trusted 
 to his power to enrapture his very large audience of fif- 
 teen hundred persons of both sexes and of all ages. 
 Sometimes words were not at his command, and he 
 would pause and wait patiently, with his peculiar smile 
 and beaming eyes, so characteristic of the man, in the 
 meantime amusing his audience by drawing on the 
 blackboard excellent outlines of animals. His French 
 accent was considered a new charm added to his other 
 personal accomplishments ; and he stepped down from 
 the platform in a burst of applause, which plainly 
 showed that he had succeeded in his rather hazardous 
 undertaking. 
 
 Until then he had never seen a scientific lecture 
 delivered before so many people. The largest audi- 
 ences he had seen were in Paris at the lecture-rooms 
 of the College de France and the Jardin des Plantes, 
 when George Cuvier was the lecturer, and at the Astro- 
 nomical Observatory, when Francois Arago was explain- 
 ing the " Systeme du Monde ' before such listeners as 
 Alexander von Humboldt, Biot, Leverier, and a whole 
 crowd of members of the French Institute. In those 
 days three or four hundred persons at most crowded 
 the Paris lecture-rooms, but the fifteen hundred auditors 
 of the Lowell Institute room surpassed everything he 
 had ever thought of. Making a large allowance for 
 the curiosity which attracted many persons, there re- 
 mained enough to satisfy, and even more than satisfy, 
 his most sanguine expectations. For the first time he 
 understood that very characteristic feature of American 
 u 
 
290 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. xii. 
 
 life, — public lectures. He was impressed by the seri- 
 ousness of his listeners, although he knew well that 
 only a small part of the audience was able to under- 
 stand the full meaning of what he said ; but it was very 
 encouraging to see so many ladies and gentlemen of 
 the world ignorant, almost all of them, of the first ele- 
 ments of natural history, listening attentively to what 
 he had to saw It showed a desire to learn, or at least 
 to be instructed on points in regard to which very 
 few of them before entering; the lecture-room had 
 the least knowledge. It was a revelation to him, 
 which from that day caused a great change not only 
 in his scientific life, but also in his social and family 
 habits. 
 
 It is fortunate for the progress of science, to which 
 Agassiz contributed so largely during his twenty years 
 of work in Europe, that he did not begin his scientific 
 life in America, for his extraordinary ability as a 
 teacher would have absorbed all his time. To be sure, 
 he would have popularized natural history, by a con- 
 stant contact, of forty-five years' duration, with the 
 general mass of the American people ; but he would 
 never have undertaken his " Poissons fossiles," and 
 many other of his original works. Although his first 
 course of lectures in America, at the Lowell Institute, 
 was a success, Agassiz felt that a part of his power was 
 paralyzed, in a great degree, by the difficulty he expe- 
 rienced in using the English language. For a man who 
 was a good scholar in Latin, in Greek, in French, and 
 in German, it was painful to realize how incorrect his 
 English was, and it was a great regret to him not to be 
 
1846-47-] A COURSE IN FRENCH. 291 
 
 able to display all his resources and his unequalled talent 
 as a teacher " hors ligne." 
 
 His friends in Boston and Cambridge understood this 
 feeling, and, at their request, Agassiz delivered, before 
 a select audience, a series of lectures on " Les glaciers 
 et l'epoque glaciaire," in French, his native language. 
 At that time, the number of persons in Boston and 
 Cambridge who knew enough French to follow a 
 lecture in that language was limited. However, the 
 subscription list was large, the ladies outnumbering the 
 gentlemen, and according to his own account it was 
 the best course of lectures he ever delivered. The sub- 
 ject was entirely new in America; the illustrations were 
 excellent and most attractive for the time, and the 
 delivery in correct and even elegant French. It was a 
 rare treat to every one, from the lecturer himself to 
 almost all his listeners, the most enthusiastic being 
 the ladies, who were lost in admiration of the Alpine 
 glaciers, Alpine peaks, Jura boulders, " roches mouton- 
 nees," and " cailloux stries," and, indeed, of the Pro- 
 fessor. 
 
 After these two courses of lectures, Agassiz became a 
 great favourite in Boston society, and he remained such 
 until the end of his life. He had conquered the "elite' 
 of Boston and Cambridge, as well as the common people, 
 not only of Boston, but of Massachusetts and even of 
 New England; for his lectures were published at once, 
 and almost in extenso in newspapers. 
 
 During the delivery of his Boston lectures, his favour- 
 ite pupil at Neuchatel, Frank de Pourtales, had joined 
 him, the first of Agassiz's European scientific friends to 
 
292 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. xii. 
 
 come to this country, attracted by his glowing accounts 
 in his private letters from America. The addition of 
 Pourtales, who had independent means, was important, 
 for Agassiz did not have to provide for his support, and 
 he was greatly assisted by him, when he settled at East 
 Boston. 
 
 After repeating his Lowell lectures at Albany, before 
 a very sympathetic audience, Agassiz and Pourtales 
 embarked at New York for Charleston, South Carolina. 
 The reception they received was particularly gratifying. 
 Everything possessed a charm unknown to Agassiz 
 until then, and it was the first time that he came in 
 contact with a sub-tropical fauna and flora. Besides, 
 the broad and generous hospitality of the planters 
 attracted him much, and Agassiz and Pourtales were 
 both glad to meet gentlemen, coming from their common 
 stock of French and Swiss Protestants, like de Saussure, 
 Ravenel, and others, or Dr. Fabre, an old Swabe 
 student of the University of Tubingen. But the man 
 who particularly pleased them was Dr. Holbrook, a her- 
 petologist of talent, one of the rare zoologists of the New 
 World, and at the same time a most amiable and ser- 
 viceable man. 
 
 Agassiz delivered a course of lectures, with the same 
 success as before the Lowell Institute, which made him 
 at once a great favourite in Southern society. Estab- 
 lished with Pourtales on one of the islands near Charles- 
 ton, he was in perfect ecstasy over his daily discoveries 
 of new fishes, new turtles, new molluscs. The rich 
 entomological fauna was also a constant surprise. But 
 what made the greatest impression on him as a natu- 
 
1846-47-] OBSERVATION ON THE NEGROES. 293 
 
 ralist was his contact with a large population of negroes. 
 With his power of comparing zoological characters, it 
 was impossible for him to consider the black man as a 
 species identical with the white man. To one who 
 considered not only the species, but even the genus, as 
 natural divisions, whatever the system of classification 
 adopted, the conclusion was irresistible. 
 
 One of his last lectures, just before leaving Neuchatel, 
 was on the geographical distribution of animals (" Notice 
 sur la geographie des animaux," " Revue Suisse," avril, 
 1845), m which he had insisted that every animal and 
 plant is confined to a certain portion of the earth, 
 while man is the only one which covers the whole 
 surface. As he says, " L'homme, malgre la diversite 
 de ses races, constitue une seule et meme espece sur 
 toute la surface du globe." It was hard for him to 
 abandon this view ; but he was too thorough a natu- 
 ralist, and had a too exalted idea of the immutability 
 of species, like his master, Cuvier, to believe in only 
 races for man. After his first visit to South Carolina, 
 species, in his eyes, existed for man as well as for every 
 other genus. That is to say that the genus homo is 
 composed of several species; for instance, the Caucasian 
 or white man is one species, with many varieties or 
 races, such as the Arabs, Indians, Turks, Scandinavians, 
 Irish, Slavic, Greeks, Italians, etc. The negro is an- 
 other species with many races or varieties, such as the 
 Hottentots, the Soudans, the Congos, the Zambesi, 
 etc. But it would be erroneous to conclude, from his 
 opinion as a naturalist, that he was in favour o\ slavery. 
 This was an abyss which he never crossed. The pas- 
 
294 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. xii. 
 
 sionate and bitter discussions, which already agitated 
 and divided the South from the North, had no influence 
 on him, and he never took part in them, directly or in- 
 directly. It is true that several politicians of the time 
 made use of his opinions for their own selfish interests, 
 but it was impossible for Agassiz to prevent it. Con- 
 fining himself to a zoological point of view, he admitted 
 with great sincerity and frankness, that although once 
 a believer in the unity of the races of man, he had found 
 out that this was an error, and that his studies among 
 large numbers of negroes and Indians had led him, as a 
 zoologist, to conclude that it was impossible to consider 
 them as simple varieties or races of the white man. In 
 his view, they were entirely distinct species, each, — 
 negroes, American Indians, and Circassians or Euro- 
 peans, — possessing its peculiar varieties or races. 
 
 But as regards the servitude of one species to another, 
 and the right of one man to sell another, Agassiz never, 
 for an instant, justified such a proceeding, either mor- 
 ally, socially, or religiously. Science had nothing to do 
 with such an iniquity ; to deal with it was the work of 
 morality, philanthropy, politics, and religion, but not 
 of a savant, whose domain is entirely outside of all 
 institutions of society. 
 
 In early spring Agassiz returned to New York, where 
 he met his assistants, Edward Desor and Charles Girard, 
 who had left Paris in February, and had embarked 
 on a sailing-ship at Havre, the 2d of March, 1847. It 
 now became needful to have a permanent establishment 
 somewhere ; and Agassiz did not hesitate to choose 
 Boston as his headquarters, on account of the great 
 
1846-47.] ESTABLISHMENT AT EAST BOSTON: 295 
 
 interest and sympathy shown to him since the day of 
 his arrival on American soil ; and, curiously enough, 
 the house he leased was only a stone's throw from his 
 landing-place at the Cunard wharf. 
 
 Accompanied by Pourtales, Desor, and Girard, he 
 came to Boston, early in April, stopping at a boarding- 
 house in Temple Place, preparatory to arranging for 
 a house. Agassiz took, for one year, a three-storied 
 brick house at East Boston, close by the sea, the tide 
 even entering the garden; where he tied up a little 
 row-boat, called, in New England, a dory, as his first 
 contribution to the furniture of his establishment. Here 
 is another example of atavism, in a descendant of the 
 lake-dwelling peoples of Switzerland, who were always 
 ready to return to water, whenever occasion offered. 
 He was led to the choice of this house, with its rather 
 heavy rent, — one thousand dollars a yeaj, — by his 
 ardent desire to have a laboratory close by the sea, 
 where he could get marine animals to his heart's con- 
 tent, and preserve them alive. 
 
 It was not easy for four Europeans, three of whom 
 spoke hardly a word of English, to furnish a house, 
 and remove there all their property, including books, 
 large diagrams, and the several barrels and boxes of 
 natural history specimens collected since Agassiz's 
 arrival. 
 
 Before the final arrangement and the removal t<> 
 East Boston, the health of Agassiz broke down, for the 
 first time in his life. Until then fatigue and anxiety of 
 all sorts had made no impression on his strong constitu- 
 tion; he seemed to be above the reach of sickness. But 
 
296 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. xii. 
 
 the numerous exertions on many lines entirely different 
 from those to which he was accustomed; the American 
 way of living, so new to him, added to his great anxiety 
 as to his future, which was still uncertain ; all this fell 
 heavily upon him ; and it is not surprising that a few days 
 after his return to Boston he was seized by a severe 
 attack of nervous prostration, a malady which clung to 
 him from this time to the end of his life, recurring now 
 and then, with an increase in the frequency of its attacks 
 as he grew older, and as he constantly and often impru- 
 dently burdened himself with new duties. 
 
 By the end of May the settlement was achieved ; 
 rooms were assigned for microscopical studies, for the 
 dissection of animals, for the drawing of large diagrams 
 for public lectures, and the collections were sorted and 
 divided for future distribution. Every day Pourtales 
 and Charles Girard went sailing in Boston harbour, 
 dredging the bottom for specimens ; or they followed 
 on foot the edge of the tide water on beautiful Chelsea 
 beach, picking up every animal worth preserving. 
 
 The originality of this naturalist-home brought to 
 East Boston not only all those engaged in the study of 
 natural history, but also many ladies and gentlemen 
 curious to see how practical zoology could be made. 
 Agassiz, with his usual buoyancy of spirit, and his ever- 
 ready desire to teach, showed the ladies how to look 
 into the microscope, explaining graphically the wonders 
 of each small animal. Then, turning to the tank of salt 
 water always teeming with marine animals, he would 
 take a fish, or a big jellyfish and explain its way of 
 swimming, or its system of blood circulation. Time 
 
1846-47-] ON BOARD THE "BIBB" 297 
 
 passed quickly, and his visitors left him charmed 
 with what they had heard and seen. Boston felt proud 
 of the acquisition of a naturalist of genius, while Agassi/ 
 was delighted to have excited an interest among persons 
 so intelligent and refined in taste. 
 
 During the heat of summer, Mr. Lowell, always 
 attentive to the comfort and welfare of Agassiz, invited 
 him and his assistant, Desor, as his guests, to visit 
 Niagara Falls and the great rapids of the St. Lawrence 
 River. The impression of this grand and picturesque 
 region, combined with the finding of glacial scratches 
 everywhere, and the sight of many zoological specimens, 
 especially fishes, created in Agassiz an admiration and 
 an enthusiasm difficult for any one not a naturalist to 
 realize, and from that moment he was resolute to conse- 
 crate the remainder of his life to the study of the natural 
 history of the New World. 
 
 Returning to Boston, he received an invitation from 
 Professor Bache to join in a cruise along the shores of 
 Cape Cod and the island of Nantucket, on the coast- 
 survey steamer Bibb, commanded by Lieutenant (after- 
 ward Admiral) Charles Henry Davis, U. S. Navy, who 
 was then employed in surveying the bay of Boston, — 
 an excursion which passed for Agassiz like a dream of 
 the Thousand and One Nights. In one day, as he says, 
 he learned more than in months from books or dried 
 specimens. It was a new opening for his never-ending 
 activity of spirits and schemes. A most intimate friend- 
 ship grew up with both Professor Bache and Lieutenant 
 Davis from that first cruise, and lasted as long as they 
 lived, and in them Agassiz found, not only sympathizers, 
 
298 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. xii. 
 
 but true patrons of scientific researches, happy in the 
 opportunity to secure to America the services of such a 
 savant. There is no doubt that Agassiz's settlement 
 in America was due to the kind reception and many 
 acts of true friendship and admiration he received from 
 Mr. Lowell and Professor Bache. 
 
 Before his first year in America was over, a most 
 intimate friend of his Swiss family, M. Charles Louis 
 Philippe Christinat, arrived at his house in East Boston. 
 Victim of a political revolution in the Canton de Vaud, 
 Christinat, for many years a minister in the village of 
 Montpreveyres, was obliged to leave his parish, and 
 after wandering as an exile in Italy and France, he 
 resolved to join his friend Agassiz, and finish his life 
 with him. He possessed the full confidence of Agassiz's 
 mother, and the family was very glad that such a trusty 
 friend was willing to help Agassiz by his advice and his 
 devotion to his person and interests ; for they all knew 
 how much Agassiz was influenced, and often not in the 
 right direction, by his secretary Desor. 
 
 As soon as Christinat arrived, at the end of Septem- 
 ber, 1847, Agassiz, who remembered how devoted Chris- 
 tinat had always been to him since his childhood, going 
 so far as to supply his always empty pocket with money 
 in order that he might make his much-desired journey 
 to Paris, felt that he had at last near him a man whom 
 he could fully trust. It was a great relief to his mind. 
 His relations with Desor were no longer as friendly as 
 they had formerly been at Neuchatel. When they met 
 again in April, after an eight months' separation, Agassiz 
 saw at once a great change in Desor's manner, and more 
 
1846-47-] DIFFICULTIES WITH IHS SECRETARY. 299 
 
 especially in his way of talking. He had left him in 
 Paris his secretary and assistant, and he found him at 
 New York his associate and collaborator, with a certain 
 air of domination which extended even to every act of 
 his private life. Passionate and painful discussions fol- 
 lowed one another in rapid succession ; and although 
 they all ended in reconciliation, they were but the begin- 
 ning of most serious difficulties. It was evident that 
 Desor's prolonged sojourn at Paris, during which he had 
 assumed the joint authorship of one of Agassiz's publi- 
 cations, and his journey in Scandinavia — at the expense 
 of Agassiz, who found the amount of one thousand 
 dollars a little hard to pay back to his banker in 
 his already straitened pecuniary position — had given 
 him a somewhat exalted opinion of his scientific and 
 social value. Agassiz was much hurt by this new de- 
 meanour of his secretary ; it was hard for him to be 
 lectured by his own pupil both on scientific and private 
 affairs. He recalled the poor young man who came to 
 him at Neuchatel at the end of 1837, not as a naturalist 
 of worth, but only as an amanuensis and translator, and 
 at whose mercy now, ten years later, he found himself, 
 both scientifically and socially. As he himself said, it 
 was he who brought the water to turn the mill, for 
 Desor had never contributed a cent to the constantly 
 increasing expenses. 
 
 The following letters are presented to show how 
 Agassiz was always ready to help and encourage a 
 young naturalist; and they allow me, at the same time, 
 to define my position with him. Being an assistant at 
 the Jardin des Plantes, under the direction of M. Cordier, 
 
300 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. xii. 
 
 the professor of geology, I was offered, as a reward for 
 work done in determining invertebrate fossils at the 
 Museum, a journey of three years' duration, outside of 
 Europe, with my own choice as regarded the country to 
 be explored. My acquaintance with Agassiz led me to 
 choose North America, and I wrote him asking if he 
 would help me by his advice, and tell me his plans 
 for explorations during 1848. His answer follows: — 
 
 Boston, 30 septembre, 1847. 
 Monsieur Jules Marcou, 
 
 Paris. 
 
 Mon cher monsieur, — Ne pouvant ecrire aujourd'hui a M . Cordier, 
 ni vous donner de quelques semaines une esquisse arrete de mes 
 projets de voyage pour Tannee prochaine et ne voulant cependant 
 pas vous laisser attendre une reponse a la demande que vous 
 m'adressez de venir rejoindre aux Etats-Unis, le trio de travailleurs 
 que vous avez connu a Paris, je me bornerai pour le moment a vous 
 dire en termes generaux que je serai charme de vous associer a ce 
 que je puis faire dans ce pays. Je sais trop bien tout ce quil reste 
 a faire dans tous les domaines de la science pour redouter le con- 
 cours d'efforts combines dans un meme but ; bien au contraire je crois 
 que les resultats scientifiques, que notre petite troupe pourra obtenir 
 seront d'autant plus considerables quelle s'associera un plus grand 
 nombre de bons observateurs ; et comme je n'ai aucun penchant 
 a m'approprier les observations d'autrui, vous pouvez etre assure 
 d'avance que quelqu'importantes ou quelqu'insignifiantes que puis- 
 sent etre les decouvertes que vous ferez dans ces peregrinations 
 communes, elles vous seront bien duement acquises, et vous reste- 
 ront en plein et sans partage, meme dans le cas ou elles auraient ete 
 amenees par des recherches que j'aurais pu vous suggerer. C'est 
 sur de telles bases seulement que je concois des rapports durables 
 entre hommes devoues a la science. 
 
 Quant a mes projets prochains, j'ai l'intention de visiter cet hiver 
 les Carolines et de revenir pour le mois de fevrier a Boston, pour 
 
1846-47-] LETTER TO J. MARCO U. 301 
 
 me preparer a une course dans POuest. Je desire consacrer une 
 bonne partie de Pete a Pexploration des bords du Lac Superieur et 
 de la vallee du Mississippi, comme preparation a une seconde course 
 au-dela. de ce fleuve, dans la direction des Montagues Rocheuses. 
 Les ressources dont je pourrai disposer ne me permettent pas de 
 songer a passer Phiver dans une sorte d'inaction, loin des grandes 
 villes, 011 je puis par quelques lecons acquerir de quoi poursuivre 
 mes recherches. Je crois de plus qu"il est plus avantageux de cou- 
 per ainsi en deux temps une exploration de POuest dont la premiere 
 campagne servira de reconnaissance et de point de depart pour la 
 seconde. Puis il y a dans Petat de POhio plusieurs collections qui 
 meritent d'etre etudiees et dont Pexamen nous evitera des travaux 
 inutiles, et nous fournira des points de repair. Meme ici a Boston, 
 mais surtout a Albany, vous pourriez consacrer bien des mois utile- 
 ment a vous preparer, car il vous sera difficile, malgre les publica- 
 tions des geologues de New York, de vous faire une juste ide'e de 
 Petendue des travaux, en grande partie inedits, qui ont 6te faits 
 dans ces contrees. Dans ce moment deux caravanes de ge'ologues 
 explorent les etats de Michigan et de Wisconsin. Aussi plutot 
 vous pourrez venir et mieux, et surtout ayez a votre disposition des 
 ressources pecuniaires suffisantes, car pour la depense les dollars 
 sont a peu pres pour nous ce que les francs etaient a Paris, avec un 
 genre de vie qui est a peu pres le meme. 
 
 Ces renseignements preliminaires vous permettront de faire vos 
 preparatifs sans delai ; des que je le pourrai, je vous ccrirai d 1 une 
 maniere plus precise a. quoi je compte nParreter definitivement pour 
 Pannee prochaine, et j'ecrirai en outre a M. Cordier pour Passurer 
 que les interets du Museum ne courront aucun risque si vous venez 
 me joindre. Je n'en veux de meilleure preuve que le fait que j'ai deja 
 mis spontanement de cote une assez jolie collection de fossiles pale'- 
 ozoiques que je destine au Jardin des Plantes et qui seraient deja 
 partis pour PEurope n'etait Pennui de Pemballage. 
 
 Je vous remercie de tous les soins que vous avez mis a Pimpres- 
 sion des Echinodermes (Catalogue raisonne) et a la redaction d'un 
 registre de la distribution ge'ologique, addenda, etc. ; ce sont de- 
 additions qui seront tres utiles, je pense. 
 
 Adieu, mon cher Monsieur; croyez a la sincerhe de Pintcict que 
 
3 o2 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [chap. xii. 
 
 je vous porte et que votre zele pour la geologie justifie si complete- 
 
 ment. 
 
 Votre devoue, 
 
 Ls. Agassiz. 
 
 In another letter, dated New York, 14 November, 
 1847, ne sa y s : — 
 
 Desor est reste a. Boston pour le moment ; Charles, dont je suis 
 assez content, est ici avec moi ; Pourtales m'accompagne dans le 
 Sud avec mon dessinateur. Nous ferons de la bonne besogne, je 
 crois, et malgre la difficulte de gagner ma vie en faisant des cours 
 depuis que je suis au terme de mes subsides de Berlin, tout va son 
 train, corame devant, et je suis loin de songer a reduire Tetendue de 
 mes recherches pour peu que je puisse continuer a. suffire a toute cette 
 dcpense a force de travail. Adieu, mon cher ami, venez bien vite 
 et je crois que vous serez content de ce pays. 
 
 Tout a. vous, 
 
 Ls. Agassiz. 
 
 END OF VOLUME I. 
 
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