1827-31-] 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, 1831, 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. 



