144 Professor Forbes on the First Discovery of the 



Extract EroFiTii. — From the Rev. J. M. Heath to Profei^sor Forbes. 



Tkinitv College, 25th Feb. 1842. 

 " I am very much obliged to 3011 for tlie extract from llie Philosophical 

 Journal. I saw the pai)er in the Journal before you sent it me, and I 

 most cordially approved of its appearing. I did not know, what you 

 seem to say in your letter, that Agassiz has claimed the main observa- 

 tion as his own. * * * I will witness that, 1st, He knew nothing 

 about it ; 2d, When he did sec it, he said it was superficial, and caused by 

 superficial sand ; SJ, That he was the last to believe that it went to any 

 depth. I tlilnk 3"our account very true, and not claiming one jot more 

 than fully belongs to you." 



I certainly anticipated that my forbearance with respect to 

 M. Agassiz would have been rightly interpreted, and that 

 silent acquiescence would have acknowledged the justice of 

 my claim. 



The event proved otherwise. The particular steps v»'hith 

 were taken by M. Agassiz to vindicate what he professed to 

 consider his due, arbitrarily and unexpectedly claimed in this 

 paper of mine, were singularly in contrast to my conduct in 

 the matter of Humboldt's letter, and to the usage in such 

 cases. But that I am willing to pass over for the present, and 

 I will now refer to the new claims of priority which he ulti- 

 mately substituted for his ov/n. 



III. 



We now pass on to the other claims to the priority of the 

 observation. 



About the same time that M. Agassiz claimed the obser- 

 vation of the Lamellar Structure of Glaciers, in the letter to 

 Humboldt, ho communicated verbally to the societies of Ge- 

 neva and Neufchatel the same fact ; and though my informa- 

 tion is not specific on this point, I presume that my name was 

 not mentioned in connection with it. This I learn from my 

 friend Professor Guyot of Neufchatel, who, immediately on 

 liearing the account of the observations on the Glacier of the 

 Aar, recollected having observed and described something 

 .'similar, three years before, on the Glacier of the Gries. The 

 note containing this observation, and others connected with 

 glaciers, had been read in 1838 in the presence of M. 

 Ao^assiz, to the meeting of the Geological Society of France 



