488 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 



particularly delightful, are full of wit and wisdom, of almost 

 paternal solicitude, and of excellent counsel. He enjoins 

 upon Agassiz to finish what he has in hand before taking up 

 new tasks (this is in 1837), not to spread his intellect over 

 too many subjects at once, nor to go on enlarging the works 

 he had undertaken ; he predicts the pecuniary difficulties in 

 which expansion would be sure to land him, bewails the gla- 

 cier investigations, and closes with " a touch of fun, in order 

 that my letter may seem a little less like preaching. A thou- 

 sand affectionate remembrances. No more ice, not much of 

 echinoderms, plenty of fish, recall of ambassadors in partibus, 

 and great severity toward booksellers, an infernal race, two 

 or three of which have been killed under me." 



The ambassadors in partibus were the artists Agassiz em- 

 ployed and sent to England or elsewhere to draw fossil fishes 

 for him in various museums, at a cost which Humboldt knew 

 would be embarrassing. The ice, which he would have no 

 more of, refers to the glacier researches upon which Agassiz 

 was entering with ardor, laying one of the solid foundations 

 of his fame. Curiously enough, both Humboldt and Yon 

 Buch, with all their interest in Agassiz, were quite unable to 

 comprehend the importance of an inquiry which was directly 

 in their line, and, indeed, they scorned it ; while the young 

 naturalist, without training in physics or geology, but with 

 the insight of genius, at once developed the whole idea of the 

 glacial period, with its wonderful consequences, upon his first 

 inspection of the phenomena shown him by Charpentier in 

 the valley of the Rhone. 



It is well that Humboldt's advice was not heeded in this 

 regard. Nevertheless, he was a wise counselor. He saw the 

 danger into which his young friend's enthusiasm and bound- 

 less appetite for work was likely to lead him. For of Agassiz 

 it may be said, with a variation of the well-known adage, that 

 there was nothing he touched that he did not aggrandize. 

 Everything he laid hold of grew large under his hand, — 

 grew into a mountain threatening to overwhelm him, and 

 would have overwhelmed any one whose powers were not pro- 

 portionate to his aspirations. Established at Neuchatel, and 



