1839-40-] "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 3ist 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 



