I08 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



Neuchatel in 1837 and produced a sensation throughout the scien- 

 tific world. It was combated and ridiculed, but in course of time 

 it has found universal acceptance, though in a modified form. 

 Agassiz never lost interest in the subject, and made extensive 

 and important contributions to it in later years. He intended 

 to publish a comprehensive work on the results obtained through 

 the researches of himself and his associates, but the enterprise 

 was frustrated by the revolution of 1848, after the publication 

 of the first volume. " If to Venetz and Charpentier belongs 

 the honor of having first proved the transportation of the Swiss 

 erratic boulders by the agency of ice, and the existence o<f 

 great glaciers formerly extending to the Jura, to Agassiz we 

 must award the merit of having given to these facts their full 

 geological significance, of having brought them before the 

 world at large and having made the glacial question, as it were, 

 the order of the day." (Guyot.) 



Important as were these glacial researches of Agassiz, his 

 friend Humboldt thought it unfortunate that he should be 

 diverted from natural history investigations, and on that account 

 induced the King of Prussia to send him on a scientific mission 

 for the comparison of the faunas of temperate Europe and 

 America. At the same time Agassiz received an invitation to 

 lecture before the Lowell Institute in Boston. He came to 

 America in 1846, and, as is well known, made an extraordinary 

 impression in scientific circles and on the public at large. " Be- 

 fore him America had had many able representatives of the 

 science of nature, fully appreciated abroad, but too much 

 ignored by the mass of the people at home, who had not yet 

 espoused the cause. Sympathy and efficient aid had been want- 

 ing. The stirring appeals of Agassiz were heard and the nation 

 nobly responded." (Guyot.) 



Professor Bache, Superintendent of the Coast Survey, gave 

 him opportunities for investigations of marine life on the 

 Atlantic Coast and among the Florida Reefs. Means were 

 found for an expedition to Brazil and the Amazon, and for the 

 publication of his " Contributions to the Natural History of the 



