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. 



