1839-40-] MURCHISON OPPOSITION. 167 



Murchison, in a letter dated Sept. 26, 1840, in speak- 

 ing of the Glasgow meeting says : " Agassiz gave us a 

 great field-day on Glaciers, and I think we shall end in 

 having a compromise between himself and us of the 

 floating icebergs ! I spoke against the general applica- 

 tion of his theory." This was precisely what was to be 

 expected from the English geologists, who are always 

 strongly disinclined to accept any new truth, if dis- 

 covered by foreigners. Even the Uniformitarians, at 

 that time already very numerous in England, with 

 Charles Lyell as their leader, did not see the splendid 

 opportunity to add a new crown of laurels to Uniformi- 

 tarianism, or the doctrine of existing causes, and they 

 persisted in getting entangled among masses of floating 

 iceberg. 



In company with Murchison, Agassiz visited the 

 North of Scotland to see the Old Red Sandstone and 

 its fishes. During the journey Agassiz found a great 

 number of traces of ancient glaciers, and in vain 

 showed them to Murchison, who, on the 29th of 

 October, wrote to Sir Philip Egerton : " If you have 

 not been frost-bitten by Buckland, you have, at all 

 events, had plenty of friction, scratching, and polishing, 

 before now, and next year you may give us a paper on 

 the glacier of Wyvis and the ' moraines ' on which you 

 sport ! I intend to make fight." On a question in regard 

 to which he knew next to nothing. 



However, Murchison's " fight ' amounted to the old 

 rehearsal of the floating iceberg theory and mud cur- 

 rents, two exploded doctrines, rather antiquated even in 

 England after Agassiz's visit of 1840. 



