The Author of the Glacial Theory. \\j 



filled with ice, whence it was that the same lakes were not 

 afterwards filled up with alluvion and drift. He goes on to 

 urge that the great blocks must have originally been 

 scattered on the ice, and been carried along by it according 

 to the physical laws which we know govern ice, and that 

 they were thus carried over lakes, valleys, and mountains, 

 and deposited on the high ridges bounding them, etc., etc. 



The lectures above referred to proceeded the next month, 

 but in the very first one Agassiz's knowledge of physics, 

 especially of the physics of ice, at this time, proved so slight, 

 that Schimper offered to help him in the subsequent ones ; 

 which offer was gladly accepted. Schimper, to commemo- 

 rate Galileo's birthday, issued a poem on the 15th of Feb- 

 ruary, 1837, entitled "Die Eiszeit : Fiir Freunde gedruckt 

 am Geburtstage Galilei, 1837." It was signed Dr. K. F. 

 Schimper, Neuchatel, February 15th, 1837, and was dis- 

 tributed by Agassiz among his auditors. This is the first 

 time the term " Ice Age " occurs, and Dr. Volger dates the 

 birth of the glacial theory from its publication ; so does 

 Charpentier (see Essai sur les Glaciers, 228). 



In July, 1837, the Helvetic Society of Natural Sciences 

 met at Neuchatel, and Agassiz addressed to it his famous 

 " Discours preliminaire," which is said to have startled his 

 hearers, and which has been generally accepted as the first 

 public pronouncement on the subject of the glacial theory. 

 In view of this meeting, Schimper, who was then at Carls- 

 ruhe, wrote Agassiz a letter, in which he asked " his brother 

 Agassiz" to bring, in his stead, before the meeting this vast and 

 important truth more quickly to the notice of the learned 

 world. In the letter he complains naively how his discovery 

 had already brought him some troubles, since it had aroused 

 the inveterate prejudices of the " desicating-water " and the 

 "cooling-fire" men, and ran counter to the traditional notion 

 of a merely mechanically progressive diminution of the 

 earth's temperature (id. 5, see also " Actes de la Societe 



