THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN GEOLOGY 



LOUIS JEAN RODOLPH AGASSIZ 



somed in the mind of Ag- 

 assiz into the conception 

 of a universal Ice Age. 



In 1857 Agassiz intro- 

 duced his theory to the 

 world, in a paper read 

 at Neuchatel, and three 

 years later he published 

 his famous Etudes sur les 

 Glaciers. Never did idea 

 make a more profound 

 disturbance in the scien- 

 tilic world. Yon Buch 

 treated it with alternate 

 ridicule, contempt, and 

 rage; Murchi'son opposed it with customary vigor; even 

 Lyell, whose most remarkable mental endowment was 

 an unfailing receptiveness to new truths, could not at 



once discard his ice- 

 berg theory in favor of 

 the new claimant. Dr. 

 Buckland, however, af- 

 ter Agassiz had shown 

 him evidence of for- 

 mer glacial action in 

 his own Scotland, be- 

 came a convert the 

 more readily, perhaps, 

 as it seemed to him to 

 oppose the uniformita- 

 rian idea. Gradually 

 others fell in line, and 

 after the usual embit- 



ADAH SEDGWICK, P.R.S. 



135 



