1846.] . ETUDES SUR GLACIERS. 263 



octavo volume on the glaciers, and second, a ' Cata- 

 logue raisonne des Echinodermes vivants et fossils." 



x 



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 



