1841-42.] CONTROVERSY WITH J. D. FORBES. 195 



In his agenda, Agassiz wrote the same day : " Pre- 

 sente comme Recteur les hommages du corps acade- 

 mique au Roi. La reponse du President du Conseil 

 d'Etat me fait supposer que les paroles moderees que 

 j'ai prononcees ont deplu." After a second thought, and 

 on the advice of the governor, General de Pfuel, repre- 

 senting the king of Prussia, the matter was dropped. 



The year 1842 began with a difficulty with James 

 Forbes, ended with one with Karl Schimper, with the 

 erection of a new and rather too costly establishment 

 at the glacier of the Aar as an interlude, - -three things 

 which might have been avoided to the advantage of 

 Agassiz. On the 26th of February his secretary, who 

 by this time had become hardly inferior to Agassiz, 

 wrote a rather sharp and irritating letter to Forbes, 

 relating to the question of priority in the discovery of 

 the laminated structure of the glacier. Desor, by incli- 

 nation and education, was always ready for a controversy 

 or a discussion on any point scientific, political, or relig- 

 ious. He had learned enough of law, when a student, to 

 assimilate the spirit of the advocate. He became a 

 naturalist by accident, and as a means of supporting 

 himself. But his proper sphere was politics; and as 

 soon as he became unexpectedly rich, he devoted almost 

 all his time to politics; as his biographer says: "He was 

 persuaded, at the end of his life, that on his shoulders 

 rested the welfare of the Swiss Confederacy, of the 

 Neuchatel Canton, and of -the federal Polytechnicum. 

 He passed all his time in writing polemic articles in 

 newspapers, compromised himself in petty personal dis- 

 cussions, and founded a newspaper to advocate and 



