THE GLACIERS AND THEIR INVESTIGATORS. 755 



never any thing more chimerical than that here assigned for the post- 

 ponement of my book and its probable improvement. The " struggle" 

 in the council had no influence upon me, for this good reason, if for 

 no other, that I knew absolutely nothing of the character of the strug- 

 gle. In Nature, for May 22, 1873, Prof. Huxley has effectually dis- 

 posed of this hypothesis ; ' and those who care to look at the opening 

 sentences of a paper of mine in Mr. Francis Galton's " Vacation Tour- 

 ists for 18G0," will find there indicated another reason for the delav. 

 I may add, that the only part I ever took in relation to Principal 

 Forbes and a medal was to go on one occasion to the Royal Society 

 with the express intention of recommending that he should have one. 



The features of character partly revealed by his biographer also 

 explain that tendency on the part of Principal Forbes to bring his 

 own labors into relief, to the manifest danger of toning down the 

 labors of others. This is illustrated by the foot-note appended to page 

 419. It is also illustrated by his references to Rendu, which, frequent 

 and flattering as they are, left no abiding impression upon the reader's 

 mind. By some qualifying phrase the quotation in each case is de- 

 prived of weight ; while practical extinction for eighteen years was, 

 as already intimated, the fate of the " generous " and " hospitable " 

 Agassiz. 



Toward the close of the " Life " his biographer, while admitting 

 that " to say that Forbes thoroughly explained the behavior of gla- 

 ciers would be an exaggeration," claims for him that he must " ever 

 stand forward in the history of the question as one of its most effective 

 and scientific promoters." This meed of praise I should be the last 

 to deny him, for I believe it to be perfectly just. To secure it, how- 

 ever, no bitterness of controversy, no depreciation of the services of 

 others, was necessary. One point here needs a moment's clearing up. 

 The word " theory," as regards glaciers, slides incessantly, and with- 

 out warning, from one into the other of two different senses. It means 

 sometimes the purely physical theory of their formation, structure, and 

 motion, with which the name of Principal Forbes is so largely iden- 

 tified. But it has a w T ider sense where it embraces the geological 

 action of glaciers on the surface of the globe. For a long time " gla- 

 cier theory " had reference mainly to the geological phenomena ; it was 

 in this sense that the words were employed by Principal Forbes in his 

 article in the Edinburgh Hevieic, published in 1842. It is in this 

 sense that they are now habitually applied by M. Agassiz, and in rela- 

 tion to the theory thus defined it is no more than natural for his sup- 

 porters to assign to M. Agassiz the highest place. I mention this to 

 abolish the mystification which threatens to surround a question which 

 this simple statement will render clear. 



I trust I may be permitted to end here. Strong reasons may cause 



1 The words " drift of my statement," employed in Frof. Huxley's letter, ought to 

 be draft of my statement. 



