556 THE LIFE OF JAMES 1). FORBES. [API 



had now no apology for ignorance of M. Guyot's claim to prior 

 observation, yet feeling that his own dissatisfaction with my 

 publication was solely grounded upon my having claimed for 

 myself something which rightfully belonged to him (M. Agassiz) 

 ' le fait le plus nouveau' of 1841 *4es observations les '>lti$ 

 precieuses de la campagne ; ' he naturally felt an embarrassment 

 at being obliged to admit that similar facts and observations 

 had been described in his hearing at Porrentruy three years 

 before. Unable to maintain any longer his own originality, in 

 his letter of the 29th March, 1842 (afterwards privately printed), 

 he endeavours to impeach mine; and, describing what passed 

 on the 9th August, in the words already quoted in Extract 

 Second, he adds : 



EXTRACT NINTH. From Professor Agassiz to Professor Forbes. 



' Je suis certain d'avoir ajoute que M. Guyot les avait vues la meme aimee 

 (1838), a une profoiideur notable sur le Glacier du Gries.' 



To prove the negative fact that M. Agassiz did not cite 

 M. Guyot upon the occasion, I can only state (1) that neither 

 Mr. Heath nor myself recollect his name to have been men- 

 tioned, although we perfectly collected M. Agassiz' meaning as 

 to his having observed the linear arrangement of the sand on the 

 surface. (2) That had the occurrence of this structure to any 

 depth been a recognized fact subsisting previously in the mind 

 of M. Agassiz, whether from his own observations or those of 

 another, Mr. Heath and I would not have spent the whole after- 

 noon in what then seemed to Mr. Heath ' the very superfluous 

 endeavour to make out whether it was superficial or not.' (3) 

 What seems decisive in the matter, M. Agassiz claimed the 

 observation as his own in the letter to Humboldt, written in 

 October; nor does he appear to have made any allusion to M. 

 Guyot in his communication on the same subject to the So< 

 de Physique at Geneva, which occasioned M. Guyot to mention 

 his prior observation. 



Between M. Guyot and myself there remains nothing to 

 explain. - That gentleman has never contested the originality 

 of my observation, and I have never pretended to doubt the 

 reality of his, which, far from being made known to the world 

 by the publication of the proceedings at Porrentruy, seems to 

 have slipt entirely from the memory of the persons present 

 (including, I am informed, MM. Studer and Agassiz), whilst 

 every written proof of it remained in manuscript. Accordingly, 

 so soon as I had satisfactory evidence of the nature of M. Guyot's 

 communication, I hastened to write to him, and assure him that 

 I admitted his observation to be identical with mine. This I did 

 in the following terms : 



