1846.] VISIT TO ENGLAND. 275 



his secretary Desor ; but the portrait of Agassiz is not 

 good, and the picture, as a work of art, is poor, showing 

 only the good will of the artist. 



At the end of August, Agassiz left Paris, going first 

 to London and then to Southampton, where he attended 

 the meeting of the British Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Sciences, the loth of September. It was im- 

 portant for him to see Charles Lyell, who had lately 

 returned from his two visits to North America, 1841- 

 1842 and 1845, on June 26, and who had prepared the 

 way for Agassiz, both with Mr. John A. Lowell, the 

 director of the Lowell Institute at Boston, and with 

 American savants in general, as to what might be ex- 

 pected from the visit of such a master and enthusiast 

 in natural history. 



During his short stay in England, Agassiz saw plainly 

 that, although all the English leaders of sciences were 

 extremely courteous and friendly to him, it was abso- 

 lutely useless to expect from them the offer of any 

 scientific position. His habit of going ahead, without 

 regard to the consequences, was too much for English 

 precision. They admired Agassiz ; but that was all. 

 Some, even, were ready to help him in a limited 

 pecuniary way, and truly loved the savant, but the 

 " sans-f agon " of Agassiz they could not sanction. 



At the end of September Agassiz embarked at Liv- 

 erpool, on a steamer bound to Boston. The passage, 

 as it is usually at about the time of the autumn equi- 

 nox, was extremely rough ; so much so that it \vas very 

 much prolonged, and created apprehension as to the 

 safety of the steamer. The newspapers even announced 



