488 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 
particularly delightful, are full of wit and wisdom, of almost 
paternal solicitude, and of excellent counsel. He enjoins 
upon Agassiz to finish what he has in hand before taking up 
new tasks (this is in 1837), not to spread his intellect over 
too many subjects at once, nor to go on enlarging the works 
he had undertaken ; he predicts the pecuniary difficulties in 
which expansion would be sure to land him, bewails the gla- 
cier investigations, and closes with “a touch of fun, in order 
that my letter may seem a little less like preaching. A thou- 
sand affectionate remembrances. No more ice, not much of 
echinoderms, plenty of fish, recall of ambassadors in partibus, 
and great severity toward booksellers, an infernal race, two 
or three of which have been killed under me.” 
The ambassadors in partibus were the artists Agassiz em- 
ployed and sent to England or elsewhere to draw fossil fishes 
for him in various museums, at a cost which Humboldt knew 
would be embarrassing. The ice, which he would have no 
more of, refers to the glacier researches upon which Agassiz 
was entering with ardor, laying one of the solid foundations 
of his fame. Curiously enough, both Humboldt and Von 
Buch, with all their interest in Agassiz, were quite unable to 
comprehend the importance of an inquiry which was directly 
in their line, and, indeed, they scorned it; while the young 
naturalist, without training in physics or geology, but with 
the insight of genius, at once developed the whole idea of the 
glacial period, with its wonderful consequences, upon his first 
inspection of the phenomena shown him by Charpentier in 
the valley of the Rhone. 
It is well that Humboldt’s advice was not heeded in this 
regard. Nevertheless, he was a wise counselor. He saw the 
danger into which his young friend’s enthusiasm and bound- 
less appetite for work was likely to lead him. For of Agassiz 
it may be said, with a variation of the well-known adage, that 
there was nothing he touched that he did not aggrandize. 
Everything he laid hold of grew large under his hand, — 
grew into a mountain threatening to overwhelm him, and 
would have overwhelmed any one whose powers were not pro- 
portionate to his aspirations. Established at Neuchatel, and 
