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 naivete, 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 

 1'epoque diluvienne ' (" Bull. Soc. Geol. France," Vol. 

 XI., p. 49. Meeting of the 2d December, 1839, Paris). 



