ARNOLD HENRY GUYOT. 



1807-1884. 



THE political disturbances of 1848, injurious as they were to 

 Switzerland, were a great and direct gain to America, for they 

 gave to this country Agassiz, Guyot, and Lesquereux, for a long 

 time eminent labourers for the advancement of American science 

 and the diffusion of sound learning among the people. The 

 refuge which this country has afforded to the politically, so- 

 cially, or religiously oppressed of the Old World has been abun- 

 dantly recompensed by the labours of those who have taken 

 advantage of it, but never more conspicuously than in the 

 above instances. 



Much light is thrown upon the character of Prof. Guyot by 

 certain facts of his descent. The Guyot family became Prot- 

 estants through the preaching of the French reformer Farel, a 

 contemporary of Luther, and, at the revocation of the Edict of 

 Nantes, was one of sixty families that betook themselves from 

 Dauphiny into the principality of Neuchatel and Valangin. 

 From such conscientious and high-minded stock have the 

 makers of the American republic been largely drawn. 



Arnold Henry Guyot was born at Boudevilliers, near Neu- 

 chatel, September 28, 1807, being one of twelve children, and was 

 named after the Swiss patriot Arnold von Winkelreid. He died 

 at Princeton, N. J., February 8, 1884. Young Guyot's father, 

 David Pierre, has been described as a man of "prompt intelli- 

 gence and perfect integrity," and his mother as " a lady of 

 great personal beauty and rare nobility of character." They 

 were married in 1796, Madame Guyot having been Mademoi- 

 selle Constance Favarger, of Neuchatel. About 1818 the 

 family moved to Hauterive, where M. Guyot died the follow- 

 ing year. 



In his memoir read before the National Academy of Sci- 

 ences, Prof. James D. Dana gives this account of Guyot's edu- 



