NATURAL HISTORY OF GENEVA. 1^1 



sciences whicli most immediately affect tlie industrial resources of the 

 people, a salutary diversion. The respectable gentlemen who honor 

 your council of state in this way acquire new right to public esteem. 

 Gentle and industrious habits, great sagacity, and naturally happy 

 dispositions, even in the lower classes, have up to this timeeminently con- 

 tributed to the prosperity of your beautiful country. Education adds 

 to labor, but education in harmony with the needs of a century which 

 does not retrograde, musr lead to that union of order and public liberty 

 which for centuries has characterized your community. I earnestly 

 advised M. Agassiz not to accept the offers which after the death of M. 

 Cuvier were made to him at Paris, and his resolution anticipated my 

 counsel. What a happy thing it would be for him and for the completion 

 of the two excellent works in which he is engaged, if he could at once, 

 this year even, be installed upon the borders of your lake. I have no 

 doubt of the protection that would be accorded to him by your worthy 

 governor,* to whom I shall repeat this suggestion, and who has honored 

 both myself and my brother with a friendship I highly prize. M. 

 Leopold de Buch, who is interested almost as much as myself in the 

 destiny of M. Agassiz, and in his work upon fossil fishes, (the most 

 important yet undertaken, and equally exact in regard to the zoological 

 characteristics and those of the formations,) promised me, on leaving 

 Berlin for Bonn and Vienna, to mention the matter to him. 



"Accept the expression of the distinguished consideration with which 

 I have the honor to be your very humble and obedient servant, 



"AL. DE HUMBOLDT. 



" Potsdam, Juhj 25, 1832." 



Agassiz took part in 1833 in the foundation of the Society of Natural 

 Sciences of Neuchatel, of which he was the first secretary. We remem- 

 ber his participation in the operations of the Swiss Society of Natural 

 Sciences, and his famous discourse at the opening in 1837, when ho 

 announced his theory of the glacial period, to the great indignation of 

 Leopold de Buch. In 1840 Agassiz visited Great Britain, where he 

 pointed out to the geologists of that country evident traces of ancient 

 glaciers. It was from England he sailed in 184G for the United States, at 

 the expense of King Frederick William, with the intention merely of 

 making a visit. The interest of his first explorations, the repugnance 

 he felt for the jiolitical revolutions of the old world, and, finally, the 

 generous and warm rece[)tion of the xVmeiicans, induced him to pro- 

 long his stay, lie a(;cei)ted a i)lace as professor, and saw develop, littie 

 by little, that brilliant career of scientilic pro[)agaiidism, of the creation 

 of museums, of expeditions along the coasts of America to the region 

 of the river of the Amazon, and to California, which attracted to him 

 public attention, and which won for him enormous donations fron» 

 wealthy Americans to the profit of his labors and of the establishments he 



* Rffciriiif; to M. (Ic riiilil. 



S. Mis. 115 11 



