IK] FORBES, GUYOT, AND AGASSIZ. 555 



the observation, and so far as it appears, never even spoke of it, 

 between the meet ing at Porrentruy in 1838, and his hearing, 

 first at Geneva in October 1841, then at Neufchatel in November, 

 M. Agassiz' account of his ' new fact.' M. Guyot has most 

 honourably testified to me 1 that not one word had ever parsed 

 If and me, which could have informed me of 

 what he already knew on the subject ; and, also, that he twice 

 traversed the Glacier of the Aar, on the 18th and 19th of August, 

 1841, without recognizing the structure which he had himself 

 described. I mention this, because M. Agassiz has thought it 

 necessary to assume that the Glacier of the Aar was more dis- 

 tinctly veined in 1841 than in any of the previous years that 

 he visited it, in order to account for his not having noticed it 

 until he returned to the glacier in my company. In the Edin- 

 li Philosophical Journal for October last, page 266, he 

 : 'During the months of August and September, 1841, 

 phenomenon was so well developed in the Glacier of the 

 Aar, that it r//A/ not fail to strike every observer! 



M. Guyot's next step was a perfectly natural and just one. 

 Finding that his original observation had been totally for- 

 gotten, he reproduced his paper from his bureau, where it still 

 remained in MS., and read it afresh before the Societ^ des 

 Sciences Naturelles at Neufchatel on the 1st December, 1841, 

 just five days before I was similarly engaged, not merely in 

 claiming for myself, before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the 

 priority of observation to M. Agassiz, but likewise proving that 

 he had his attention directed by me to the structure in question. 

 The transaction with M. Guyot did not come to my knowledge 

 until long after. 



Meanwhile, M. Agassiz sent no direct answer or complaint 

 upon the receipt of my Paper on the Structure of Glaciers, I 

 will not now advert to the means taken, through third parties, 

 to discredit my statements, on the one hand, and on the other, 

 to obtain from me a renunciation of my claim under a threat of 

 exposure. Having no exposure to fear, I contented myself with 

 send I. Agassiz a statement of the various facts, cited in 



the commencement of this paper, connected with the discovery 

 on the 9th of August, requesting to know \\ hether any of them. 

 or which, were denied. A tardy and involved reply (-'.'th 



h, 1842) contained a denial of none of them, but (a 

 have see: <t Second) an exact confirmation of what both 



Mr. II. Mill and I ivrnllrrtrd him then to have stated respecting 

 his own observati . I'.ut the real cause of the markrd em- 

 barrassment of his reply I was not at the time aware of. He 

 1 In a Letter dated 3rd June, 1842, in answer to mine in Extract Tenth. 



