THE INCORPORATORS 143 



philosopher, where he met Agassiz, Schimper, Imhoff, and other 

 naturalists. After a short sojourn in Stuttgart, Guyot returned 

 to Neuchatel in 1827. Here, under the preaching of the 

 Reverend Samuel Petit-pierre, he turned from science to the- 

 ology, and began to prepare himself for the church, although his 

 leisure hours were still spent in collecting plants and shells, and 

 in other scientific activities. 



In 1829 he went to Berlin, chiefly to attend the lectures of 

 Schleiermacher, Neander and other historians and theologians 

 at the University of Berlin, but he also became interested in those 

 of Hegel, Steffens, Hofmann, Dove, and other professors of the 

 scientific faculty, and made the acquaintance of Humboldt. 

 After a little time he found his inclinations toward the study of 

 nature so strong that he abandoned theology for natural science. 

 While in Berlin, Carl Ritter, the geographer, made an especially 

 strong impression on him and turned his mind in the direction of 

 geographical studies. At the end of five years at the University 

 of Berlin, he received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, tak- 

 ing as the subject of his graduating thesis " The Natural Classifi- 

 cation of Lakes." 



After leaving the university, he went to Paris and became 

 tutor to the children of Count de Pourtales-Gorgier, and with 

 them he visited the Pyrenees and travelled in Italy, Belgium, and 

 Holland, and along the Rhine. While in Paris in 1838, he was 

 urged by Agassiz to take up the study of the glaciers of the Alps, 

 to which he himself had attracted the attention of the scientific 

 world the preceding year by the announcement of his glacial 

 theory. 



Guyot acceded to the request of his friend and spent some 

 weeks in an examination of the Alpine glaciers. He made 

 several important original discoveries regarding their structure 

 and action, but as it had been agreed between himself and 

 Agassiz that his special field should be considered to be the 

 phenomena of the Swiss erratic boulders, his results were with- 

 held from publication for forty years. He did, however, present 

 a communication on the " blue bands " of glaciers and the incli- 



