1858-64.] SIV/SS XATl/RALfSTS AT GENEVA. 79 



The Swiss naturalists gathered promptly at Geneva 

 and the Helvetic Society met the 24th and 25th of 

 August in one of the halls of the Conservatory of 

 Music. All Agassiz's old friends came in force ; among 

 them, Peter Merian of Bale, the Nestor of Swiss 

 geologists ; Escher von der Linth of Zurich, a class- 

 mate and personal friend, and one of the first con- 

 verts to the glacial theory; Bernard Studer of Berne, 

 the explorer of the geology of the Oberland, Monte 

 Rosa, and Grand St. Bernard ; Louis de Coulon of 

 Neuchatel, the constant friend of Agassiz, etc., etc. ; 

 besides foreign savants of note, Tyndall and Frank- 

 land of England, Henry St. Clair Deville of Paris, 

 and others. 



The interest concentrated on the communications of 

 Agassiz. On the first day he treated, with more than 

 his usual brilliancy, a general question of natural his- 

 tory : " Toutes les grandes divisions du regne animal, 

 telles qu'elles ont etc etablies par Cuvier, sont avec 

 quelques modifications, fondees sur des bases naturelles 

 tenant a un plan commun et non sur des bases plus ou 

 moins artificielles," and on the second day he communi- 

 cated his observations on the Acalephs, and the present 

 formation of coral reefs on the Florida coasts in con- 

 nection with an explanation of some oolitic strata of the 

 Jura Corallian. 



All the Swiss naturalists were loud in their congratu- 

 lations. It was such a treat to hear again the voice of 

 one who had made such a sensation, first at Neuchatel 

 in 1837, and afterwards at Porrentruy in 1838, on the 

 subject of the glacial age and the present glaciers. 



