16 EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



Columbus, Ohio, May 1, 1884. 

 Prof. Lester F. Ward, 



Washington, D. C. : 



My Dear Sir : I am greatly honored by your kind letter of the 29th past, and 

 hasten to answer it. Indeed, I have wanted for some weeks to write to you and have 

 only been prevented from doing so by a somewhat long spell of sickness. I will, 

 however, write to you as soou as I have a moment of leisure. I am now crowded with 

 proofs coming in mass for correction, and can but now say only what you wish to 

 know. 



I was born at Fleuiier, Canton of Neuchatel, Switzerland, November 18, 1806. 

 My father was a manufacturer of watch springs, in tolerably good circumstances, but 

 not rich. Being the only son, and fond of books, especially of rocks and flowers, a 

 kind of natural, as they call people of that kind in the South, my mother wanted me 

 to become a minister. My family, Lescure, Lescurieux, Lesquereux, being of French 

 origin, Huguenots, emigrated from France, with most of the old families of French 

 Switzerland. To that end, after my village schooling, I was sent to college at Neu- 

 chatel, and there passed through all the classes up to the last one (philosophy), being 

 then ready at my nineteenth year to go to the university. My father had paid at Neu- 

 chatel my board only. I had earned the expenses of academical lessons by teaching. 

 My father being unable to support exi)euses at the university in Germany, I accepted 

 a position in Saxony at Eisenach as professor of French language, exjiectiug to make 

 money enough to go later to a nniveisity. But after four years' sojourn at Eisenach 

 I became engaged to a young lady, and instead of going to the university I came back 

 to Switzerland and was accepted as principal of a college. La Chaux de Fonds, and 

 after one year went back to Eisenach to get married. After three years of teaching 

 at La Chaux de Fonds I became gradually and soon totally deaf, or at least so deaf 

 that I had to abandon my position and find something else to support my family. I did 

 that for years by manual labor, having returned to my family and gone in partnership 

 with my father. But I could not stick to that work, and was constantly busy in my 

 hours of rest, that is mostly in the night, with a poor, small microscope, studying 

 mosses, and on Sundays running in the mountains to gather them. The Govern- 

 ment of Neuchatel was then greatly interested in the protection of peat bogs on 

 account of the difficulties of procuring fuel for the poor, and oflered a prize (gold 

 medal of 20 ducats) for the best memoir on the formation of the peat, its preserva- 

 tion, etc. I went to that study and won the prize. My memoir — Recherches sur les 

 Tourbieres du Jura — is still quoted and has been long considered as the best on the 

 subject. It was from the i)ublication of tliat memoir that I become more intimately 

 acquainted with Agassiz, and that i\w. King of Prussia (that is his Government), 

 oflered to pay my expenses and somewhat more if I would undertake a tour of explo- 

 ration through (Jermany and any other pouutries I should wish in Europe, for the in- 

 vestigation of the peat bogs. Of course I accepted, went through Germany, Sweden, 

 Denmark, Hollaiul, Belgium, France, every where I could find peat bogs, and returned 

 with a mass of material which I expected to use for a book on the subject. Neuchatel 

 A'as then under the protectorate of the King of Prussia. In 1848, and when I was 

 engaged as director of exploitations of peat bogs bought by the Government, the 

 liberal or Swisss party became master of the sicnation and all those who had been 

 appointed to any place by the Government were of course thrown aside. The Academy 



