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NA TURE 



\Jan. 28, 1886. 



all his own drawings and notes upon the subject. A. von 

 Humboldt also took the warmest interest in the young 

 Swiss, aiding him by help of the friendliest and most 

 practical kind. But Agassiz was still without any regular 

 means of self-support ; the publishing schemes were not 

 so successful financially as he had fondly anticipated, and 

 at last, after some months of over-strain among the 

 treasures of the Paris museums, he gladly accepted, in 

 the autumn of the year 1832, the offer of a Professorship 

 of Natural Science created for him at Neuchatel by the 

 exertions of his friends. For the first time he had now 

 the opportunity of appealing to a wider circle of listeners 

 than his own fellow-students. The enthusiasm of his 

 nature soon made itself felt in the new vigour with which 

 natural science was followed in the canton. A Society for 

 the prosecution of the study of nature was founded, with 

 Agassiz as oneof its leading spirits. Hill and dale,riverand 

 lake were explored far and near, and the systematic lectures 

 of the class-room were supplemented by even more valu- 

 able discourses in the field. From this period onward a 

 large part of Agassiz's time and thought was given to the 

 promulgation of a knowledge of nature, not only to pro- 

 fessed students but among the general public. With his 

 extraordinary energy he still found time for an amount of 

 original research that would have been more than enough 

 for most naturalists. Bold almost to recklessness, in his 

 disregard of financial difficulties, he now (1833) launched 

 the first number of his " Poissons Fossiles," and, in spite 

 of incredible obstacles, continued the preparation and 

 publication of the work for the next ten years. In the 

 course of his researches for this great monograph he 

 came several times to England, bringing with him the 

 artists he had trained in drawing natural history speci- 

 mens, and spending much time in the public museums as 

 well as in the private collections where he found such a 

 wealth of palajontological material. 



The " Poissons Fossiles " will ever remain as a monu- 

 ment of extraordinary industry and of a remarkable 

 insight into the relationships between recent and ex- 

 tinct types of life. The keynote of all Agassiz's work 

 in natural history sounds out clear and distinct in 

 the introduction to this great work. He proposed a 

 new classification of fishes which, though it has been 

 subsequently considerably modified, was of great geo- 

 logical value in showing the true history and import- 

 ance of the great order of Ganoids, which he first recog- 

 nised. With a keen eye for real or supposed analogies 

 and relationships, he saw in the earlier fishes of the 

 geological record a commingling of ichthyic with rep- 

 tilian characters which suggested to him his "prophetic 

 types," and, following out the same idea, he made the 

 startling announcement that in the phases of the em- 

 bryonic development of our living fishes there is a close 

 analogy to the successive types of fishes which have 

 appeared in the past history of the earth. It is curious 

 to remember that a naturalist who saw so far ahead of 

 his contemporaries remained a consistent opponent of all 

 theories of evolution. He admitted in the fullest sense 

 the evidence of " the most admirable progressive develop- 

 ment to which our own species is linked," but to him the 

 progress was one of plan in the mind of the Creator, and 

 not the mere material change of one form into another. 

 One of the most characteristic features of Agassiz's 



mind was its restless activity and untiring energy. The 

 labour entailed by his great work on fossil fishes would 

 have been enough or more than enough for any ordinary 

 man. But while it was in progress he found time for the- 

 prosecution of his researches among recent fresh-water 

 fishes ; for an investigation of Echinoderms recent and 

 fossil, and for the study of fossil Mollusca, and the 

 evidence for these added labours appeared in bulky 

 quarto memoirs with numerous plates. Besides these 

 works, however, he undertook the almost incredible 

 drudgery of compiling a zoological " Nomenclator," con- 

 taining the names of living and fossil genera of animals, 

 and a " Bibliographia Zoologije et Geologise," giving a 

 full list of published papers on these sciences. Dis- 

 satisfied with the delays and defects of the Munich en- 

 graving establishments, he founded a lithographic work- 

 shop at Neuchatel, and astonished the world by the 

 beauty of the chromolithographed fossil fishes which he 

 there produced, the art of chromolithography being then 

 in its infancy. 



With this mental activity was combined a bodily 

 vigour which carried him unwearied through long excur- 

 sions. As a recreation he turned to the glaciers of the 

 Alps. Before his student days at Heidelberg he had 

 made himself acquainted with that mountain-world. 

 But in the summer of 1836, under the guidance ot 

 Charpentier, he began the systematic study of the glaciers. 

 Before the end of that excursion he had seized the mean- 

 ing of the scattered erratic blocks and ice-worn bosses of 

 rock that lie far above and beyond the present limits of 

 the ice. He saw as by a kind of inspiration the evidence 

 for the former vast extension of the Alpine glaciers, and 

 though he continued in later years laboriously to fill in 

 the details of the picture, his first rough draft remained 

 unchanged in all its essential features. As soon as he 

 began to make known his ideas in glacial geology, he 

 was met with a storm of opposition. Even his kind 

 friend Humboldt could not forbear words of gentle 

 reproof and warning. But he remained unshaken in his 

 faith, and eventually had the satisfaction of seeing one 

 after another of his opponents candidly acknowledge 

 themselves mistaken. From 1836 to 1846 he continued 

 with unabated enthusiasm his glacial researches, scaling 

 mountain-pass and glacier, and publishing first his 

 " Iitudes sur les Glaciers " (1840), and then his " Systcme 

 Glacifere" (1846), besides separate papers in scientific 

 journals. Atnong these minor contributions, undoubtedly 

 the most memorable is the short communication made to 

 the Geological Society of London in 1840 on the evidence 

 of glaciers in Britain. Agassiz came to this country in 

 that year convinced beforehand that there must be 

 abundant evidence of former glaciers among our uplands. 

 With the genial Buckland he went into the Scottish 

 Highlands, and found everywhere, as he had anticipated, 

 the most convincing proofs of ancient glaciers. From that 

 time onward the study of Pleistocene geology took a new 

 departure among the geologists of this country, and the 

 opposition to glacial agency soon died out. 



The " Poissons Fossiles " was followed soon after by 

 the publication of the monograph on the fishes of the 

 Old Red Sandstone— another land-mark in the progress 

 of pateontology. Since the appearance of these works 

 a new generation has appeared ; the number and size of 



