150 Professor Forbes on the First Liscoeery of the 



made his communication on the 6th September in the same 

 year, consequently M. Agassiz could not have revisited the 

 Glaciers in the interval. The communication at Bale M'as 

 therefore., no doubt, a repetition of the communication at Por- 

 rentruy made eight days before, and the drawing of Agassiz 

 was probably done from memory after the drawing of Guyot. 

 At least, I am at a loss to explain these seemingly independ- 

 ent communications in any other way, nor will I even put the 

 question, whether the structure described was a vertical 

 structure at all. I do not suspect M. Agassiz of the reserve 

 of having made no mention at Porrentruy that the fact of 

 Guyot had been ascertained by himself, and then of hav- 

 ing gone immediately to claim it as original at Bale. I ap- 

 prehend rather that the Secretaries at Bale (to whose MS. 

 notes we are indebted alone for any knowledge of this trans- 

 action, forgotten even by the principal actor in it) had sup- 

 posed, from M. Agassiz' verhal communication {de tive toix), 

 that whilst relating what his friend M. Guyot had seen, he 

 was really giving an account of his own observations. 



I mention this as the explanation most natural and most fa- 

 vourable to M. Agassiz. But I would ask, if facts and theo- 

 ries are to be introduced thus into the history of science, where 

 is the i)alm of discovery ever to be bestowed 1 Surely a man 

 must have very little skill as an observer, and have exer- 

 cised still less thought to render his observations worth re- 

 cording, if he cannot recognise his own discovery when pointed 

 out to him, but is obliged to take the authority of his friends, 

 at the end of three years, that he ever knew it ! Such evi- 

 dence is barely tolerated in the case of posthumous claims. I 

 suppose that this is the first instance of its being gravely urged 

 during life. That I may not be imagined to have brought 

 forward this claim more strongly than its author hiis done, I 

 quote from his letter to myself. 



Extract Tvf^LVTU.^ Professor Agassiz to Professor Forhes. 



" Monsif.uk — Je re^ois la lettrc suivanto tie TM. Dubois de Montperciix 

 * * * dont je crois devoir vous donner copie afin de vous prouver que 

 de men cote j'avais aussi reniarque des 1838, la structure lamellairc d'uiic 

 partie des glaciers, alors ineuie que fautc de plus aniples details, je n'cn 

 ai meulionne'e dan>: nion 11\ re que Ics ajiparenccs superficiellcs. Vous 



