152 Professor Forbes un Glacier Ice. 



Godefroy, is certainly a most convincing proof of how long 

 the most evident and important facts may remain practically 

 unnoticed. It can hardly be donbted that it must have been 

 casually seen by these intelligent persons, who have traversed 

 such a vast extent of glacier surface ; but certainly every prin- 

 ciple of interpretation leads us to the conclusion that it was not 

 observed in such a way as facts must be to enter within the 

 pale of science, since no trace of it is to be found in any of their 

 writings on this very subject. I have it on the authority of 

 three eminent persons in England, France, and Switzerland, 

 — all men of science, much travelled, and much observing, — • 

 that, upon reading my account, they recognised what they 

 could distinctly recall having seen on the glaciers which they 

 had visited, though they never attempted to generalize the 

 observation, or to attach theoretical importance to it. 



In like manner the older observers, whose more vague lan- 

 guage and antiquated terms make their meaning capable of 

 several interpretations, may very possibly have described this 

 appearance, without its having been handed down to their 

 successors. I have not yet seen any evidence that they have 

 done so, but I stated last winter to the Royal Society of Edin- 

 burgh, that I should not feel the least surprise if such an an- 

 ticipation were discovered. How easy it is to find meanings in 

 undefined phrases, after a well-marked truth has been an- 

 nounced, may be judged of from the interpretation given even 

 by a very able and candid judge, of a passage in Godefroy's 

 Notice sur les Glaciers, p. 12, as referring to the present ques- 

 tion, but which a closer examination shews has no relation to 

 it whatever. 



I cannot conclude with any observation so just, or so much to 

 the point, as that which Professor Studer has added to the tes- 

 timony, of which I have already quoted a part [Extract Fourthi, 

 in a letter to myself. " Cest toujours Thistoire de I'ceuf de 

 Colombo ; je ne doute pas que De Saussure, De Charpentier, 

 Agassiz et tant d'autres, parmi lesquels je me placerai moi- 

 meme, comme vous vous y etes place aussi, n'aicnt vu cette di- 

 vision verticale de la glace bien avant notre dernier voyage 

 auGrimsel: — comme Newton, aura souvent vu tomber des pom- 

 mes sans songer a la lune. Dans toutes les decouvertes il ne 

 suffit pas de voir les choses, ou bicn la science ne ferait pas 

 des prugres auijsi lents."' 



