463 



it has acquired in science in very great measure to his efforts his 

 work, 'Theorie der erratischen Blocke der Alpen ' (1838), his other 

 writings, and his genial eloquence at scientific meetings, having done 

 more than anything else to attract the attention of geologists to the 

 efficiency of ice as a modifier of the earth's surface, and as a means of 

 transport. Thus led to the consideration of glacial phenomena in 

 general, Professor Agassiz, accompanied by M. Desor and others, 

 next devoted many months of several successive years to the sy- 

 stematic study of the glaciers of his native country especially to that 

 of the Aar, where under the mighty boulder nicknamed by those 

 whom it sheltered the " Hotel 4es Neufchatelois," inquirers of all 

 nations found not only a welcome, but the nobler hospitality of a 

 free access to all that was being thought and planned and done by 

 the little party of savans of whom Agassiz was the head. The results 

 of the investigations thus laboriously carried on, were embodied in 

 the * Etudes sur les Glaciers,' published in 1840, and the ' Nouvelles 

 Etudes,' which appeared in 1847; and apart from all minor con- 

 tributions, Professor Agassiz will be admitted by all who duly 

 acquaint themselves with the history and present state of the question, 

 to have made two important additions to our knowledge of glaciers. 

 For, in the first place, the general account of the glaciers of the 

 Aar given by Professor Agassiz in the ' Nouvelles Etudes,' and 

 the trigonometrical survey of the same glacier executed by M. Wild 

 under his auspices, were works of unrivalled excellence when pub- 

 lished, and have never been surpassed. And in the second place, 

 without detracting in any way from the merit due to others, it 

 may with certainty be affirmed that Professor Agassiz was the first 

 to take the proper means to ascertain the relative motion of 

 the central and lateral parts of a glacier, which was done in the 

 autumn of 1841 ; and that he also had the good fortune to reap the 

 fruit of his arrangements, by being the first to make public (in the 

 'Comptes Rendus' for August the 29th, 1842) the novel and to him 

 unexpected result that the centre of a glacier moves faster than the 

 sides. 



PROFESSOR MILLER, 



It is the happy combination of intellectual genius with diligence 

 and perseverance that has enabled M. Agassiz to arrive at the great 

 results, a brief statement of which has just been read by the Secretary. 



2L2 



