64 
NATURE 
[May 22, 1873 
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 
[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 
by his correspondents. No notice is taken of anonymous 
communications. } 
Forbes and Tyndall 
AT p. 387 of the recently published ‘Life and Letters” of 
the late Principal Forbes, the following passage occurs :— 
‘*T believe that the effect of the struggle—though unsuccessful 
in its immediate object—will be to render Tyndall and Huxley 
and their friends more cautious in their further proceedings. 
For instance, Tyndall’s book, again withdrawn from Murray’s 
‘immediate’ list, will probably be infinitely more carefully 
worded relative to Rendu than he at first intended.” 
This passage has been selected, among others, by Principal 
Shairp, the editor of this portion of the ‘‘ Life,” from a letter 
addressed to A. Wills, Esq., under date of November 14, 1859 : the 
“struggle” to which it refers arose out of an attempt on the part 
of some influential friends of Principal Forbes, who were at that 
time members of the Council of the Royal Society, to obtain the 
Copley medal for him ; and it took place at the Council meet- 
ings which were held on October 27 and November 3, 1859. 
I was not a member of the Council at this time, and there- 
fore, I could take no direct part in the “‘ struggle” in question. 
But, for some years before 1859, glaciers had interested me very 
much ; I had done my best to inform myself in the history of 
glacier research ; I had followed with close attention the contro- 
versy which had been carried on between Prof. Tyndall and his 
friends, on the one hand, and Principal Forbes and his supporters 
on the other ; and, finally, I had arrived at a very clear convic- 
tion that the claims made for Principal Forbes’s work, could not 
be justified. 
Under these circumstances I thought it would be a most un- 
fortunate occurrence if the Council of the Royal Society, con- 
taining as it did, not a single person who had made the glacier 
question his especial study, should practically intervene in the 
controversy then raging, and throw its weight upon the side of 
one of the combatants, without due consideration of what was to 
be said on the other side. 
A friend of mine, who was a member of the Council, shared 
these views ; and, inorder to enable him to enforce them, I under- 
took to furnish him with a statement wlfich he could lay before 
the Council when the award of the Copley medal came up for 
discussion. : 
It is not necessary to state what took place at the meetings of 
the Council—suffice it to say that the Copley medal was not 
awarded to Principal Forbes. 
So far, therefore, as my statement may have contributed to this 
result, my efforts were completely successful. Principal Forbes’s 
very influential champions in the Council were left, as I am in- 
formed, in a hopeless minority ; and instead of tending to make 
me more cautious in my ‘‘ future proceedings,” what occurred on 
this occasion should have emboldened me. 
The notion expressed by Principal Forbes that I and Prof. 
Tyndall’s other friends were in any way discouraged by the 
results of our battle, is therefore strangely erroneous ; however, I 
do not know that the error would have been worth correction, if 
Prof. Tyndall had not been referred to as one of those who took 
part in the fray. But, in justice to Prof. Tyndall, I am bound to 
say that he knew nothing about the battle until after it was over. 
My ally in the Council and I, agreed, for reasons which will be 
cbvious to any honourable man, that Prof. Tyndall, though an 
intimate friend of ours (and largely because he was so), ought not 
to have any knowledge of the action we took ; and, in a note 
dated November 4, 1859, I find myself suggesting to my friend 
in the Council, that Tyndall ought to be kept in his then igno- 
rance ‘‘until his book is out.” I have every reason to believe 
that this suggestion was carried into effect; at any rate, Prof. 
Tyndall did not see the'd:ift of my statement till a year ago” when 
(on May 13, 1872) I sent it to him accompanied by some other 
documents and the following note :— 
** Routing among my papers yesterday I came upon the in- 
closed cinders of an old fire, which I always told you you should 
see some day. They will be better in your keeping than 
mine.” 
I am informed that there was not even an attempt to contro- 
vert the leading points of my statement on the part of the advo- 
cites of Principal Forbes’s claims ; and therefore the assertion 
that Prof. Tyndall was led to word ‘‘ infinitely more carefully ” 
what he had already written about Rendu, by anything which 
occurred in the Council, is simply preposterous. 
In making these remarks I have no intention of throwing the 
slightest blame upon the late Principal Forbes ; who surely had 
a perfect right to express to an intimate friend whatever impres- 
sion was left upon his mind, by such reports as reached him of 
the occurrences to which he refers, But I confess I find it diffi- 
cult to discover any excuse for the biographer, who deliberately 
picks the expressions I have quoted out of a private letter, and 
gives them to the public, without taking the trouble to learn 
whether they are, or are not, in accordance with easily‘ascertain- 
able facts. T. H. Hux.ey 
May 17 
Forbes and Agassiz 
In the review of Dr. Tyndall’s book on the ‘* Forms of 
Water” which appeared in NaTuRr, vol, vii. p. 400, the follow- 
ing words occur :—‘‘ But surely it was not unnecessary to rake up 
again the Forbes-Rendu controversy, nor to renew the claims of 
Agassiz and Guyot.” Mr. Alexander Agassiz takes exception to 
this (see NATURE, vol, viii. p. 24) and makes the following asser- 
tions :—That when a guest of Agassiz on the glacier of the Aarin 
1841, Forbes returned the hospitality of Agassiz ‘‘ byappropriating 
what he could” from the work of the latter, and ‘‘ misrepresent- 
ing the nature of his intercourse with Agassiz.” This refers to 
a matter of facts and may be proved or disproved by the facts, 
It refers to an attack made upon Forbes in 1842, which was 
immediately answered by him in a manner that left no room for 
further discussion. I must necessarily be brief in stating the 
facts. They may be found fully detailed in the Zdin. New Phil. 
Journal, 1843, or in the ‘‘ Life and Letters of James David Forbes, 
1873.” They are as follows :—In 1841 Forbes enjoyed the 
pleasure of a visit to Agassiz on the Unteraar Glacier. On the 
first day of their sojourn (August 9), their only companion was 
Mr. Heath, of Cambridge. They were afterwards joined by 
friends of Agassiz. On this first day Forbes pointed out to 
Agassiz the veined structure of the ice. Agassiz had spent five 
summers studying the glaciers (see Mr. Alexander Agassiz’ letter 
in NaTuRE), but he replied ‘‘that it must be a superficial 
phenomenon, that he had on a previous occasion noticed such 
markings, and that they were caused by the sand of the moraines 
causing channels of water to run.” Forbes showed him that the 
structure was general, even in the body of the glacier, Agassiz 
expressed a doubt “‘ whether the structure had not been superin- 
duced since the previous year.” Forbes afterwards showed him that 
in a crevasse three or four years old the markings extended across 
the crevasse and were visible in continuation from one side to 
the other. Further, Forbes insisted upon its intimate connec- 
tion with the theory of glaciers. When in the ensuing winter 
M. Desor wrote to Prof. Forbes denying his claims to the dis- 
covery, the latter sent him a statement of the above facts, begging 
that M. Agassiz should state whether they were correct or not. 
M. Agassiz wrote an answer to this letter. He does not deny 
a single one of the facts supplied by Forbes in connection with 
the observations of August 9. This letter was printed and cir- 
culated by M. Agassiz. Furthermore, when these facts were 
published by Forbes, even then M. Agassiz did not deny any 
of them. Moreover, Mr. Heath, the only other witness, gives 
his evidence in support of the accuracy of the above facts (see 
‘*Life of Forbes,” Appendix B, Extract I.), Other friends of 
Agassiz, who joined them afterwards, wrote to Forbes stating 
their belief that to him alone belonged the discovery. After 
leaving the Aar glacier Forbes extended his observations. He 
showed (1), that the structure was common to most, if not all, 
glaciers (see ‘‘ Forbes’ Life,” p. 550, note) ; (2), that this was 
the cause of the sand lying in lines (‘‘ Life,” p. 548); (3), that 
this was also the cause of the supposed horizontal stratification 
of the terminal face of some glaciers (Royal Soc. Edin., 1841, 
Dec. 6) ; (4), he showed that these blue markings were the out- 
croppings of blue ice that formed lamellar surfaces in the interior 
of the glacier ; (5), he actually determined the shape of these sur- 
faces in the case of the Rhone glacier (R. S. E., 1841, Dec. 6); 
(6), he remarked that ‘*the whole phenomenon has a good deal 
the air of being a structure induced perpendicular to the lines 
of greatest pressure,” though he did not assert the statement to 
be general. This was in 1841. In later years he extended 
these observations. [ have said enough to prove (1), that 
although Agassiz carried with him ‘‘a geologist, a microscopic 
observer, a secretary, a draughtsman, and many workmen,” and 
though he had spent five summers studying the glaciers, he did 
not see these markings (or at any rate recognise them as a struc- 
ture of the ice) until Forbes showed them to him ; and (2), thet 
Forbes recognised this structure as an important ‘indication of 
