134 Professor Forbes on the First Discovery of the 



under which the observation of the veined structure in 

 THE ICE OF GLACIERS* was made. 



In the second phice, 1 shall explain the circumstances under 

 which I made it public 



In the third place, I shall discuss shortly the claims to pri- 

 ority of observation which have subsequently been made. 



I. 



In 1840, M. Agassiz invited me to make a tour with him 

 the next summer an:inngst the glaciers of the Oberland, 

 Vallais, and Savoy. I understood the invitation to extend 

 simply to our mutual companionship on a journey of mutual 

 interest. Of third parties there was no mention ; and it was 

 with diffidence that I requested permission for my friend and 

 fellow traveller, Mr Heath, fellow and tutor of Trinity Col- 

 lege, Cambridge, to increase the number. It was only after 

 all preliminaries were arranged, and after I had agreed, 

 in order to accommodate M. Agassiz, to change the direc- 

 tion in which I proposed to commence our intended tour, 

 that 1 learned that he had several friends in company with 

 him ; and it was not until my arrival at the Grimsel, on the 

 8th of August, that I learned that the plan of a tour, into 

 which I had originally gone, had been abandoned by my fel- 

 low-traveller, for reasons which he did not assign, and that I 

 was expected to unite with the party he had i'ormed at Neuf- 

 chatel, to spend some time on the glacier of the Aar, instead 

 of prosecuting the journey originally proposed. I cheerfully 

 acquiesced, however, in the arrangement, which promised to 

 give me a good insight into the structure of glaciers, which I 

 proposed farther to study by prosecuting alone, or with Mr 

 Heath, my originally projected tour to Monte Rosa and Mont 

 Blanc. 



It is to be remembered that the glacier of the Aar was the 

 one which M. Agassiz had already repeatedly visited in former 

 years, and on which he had constructed a sort of hut in which 

 he had lived for some time. 



His other friends not having all arrived, M. Agassiz, Mr 

 Heath, and myself, accompanied by (I believe) a single guide, 

 ascended the glacier on the 9th August 1841. 



* Sje EdinburgU rhilo-op'.ii-al Jouina'.. Janiuiry iyj-2, p. GD. 



