368 Arnold Guyot. 



him; and so his paper, excepting the paragraphs on the "blue 

 bands," remained buried until after Agassiz's decease. 



At Neuchdtel — Professor in the Academy, 1839-1848. — In 

 1839, at the age of thirty-two, Guyot left Paris and returned to 

 his native town. He at once became an active member of the 

 Society of the Natural Sciences (which had been initiated by 

 Agassiz in 1832), and was made, by the Society, one of a com- 

 mittee — including also M. A. Osterwald and H. Ladame — for 

 the organization of a system of meteorological observations in 

 Switzerland and the selection of the best instruments for the 

 purpose. On the establishment of the "Academy" at Neu- 

 chatel for the purpose of furnishing a university education to 

 the graduates of the college or gymnasium, he was appointed to 

 the chair of History and Physical Geography, and became a 

 colleague of Agassiz. He hesitated about taking charge of the 

 department of History, as it had not been one of his special 

 lines of study; but once committed to it, he plunged into the 

 subject with great earnestness. He says, he groped on among 

 the details for two years before he began to distinguish its 

 grand periods; and the light as it broke in upon him caused 

 so intense excitement that he was made ill. 



Instruction was a great pleasure to him, because of his deep 

 interest both in his subject and in his pupils. His two de- 

 partments called out from him thirteen general and special 

 courses of lectures. With regard to the lectures, Mr. Faure 

 says : " From the first, in spite of his apprehensions, he capti- 

 vated his audience by his easy, elegant, sympathetic words, by 

 the breadth of his views, and the abundance and happy ar- 

 rangement of his facts. He had each winter afterward the 

 pleasure of seeing men of cultivation of all classes in Neuch&tel 

 pressing into the large hall of the college and listening to him 

 with riveted attention." His pupil adds : " What zeal he in- 

 spired ! What ardor for work ! The fire with which he was 

 filled passed to us. He was more than a professor ; he was a 

 devoted friend, a wise counsellor, associating himself with us 

 and encouraging us in our work." 



Guyot, besides lecturing and instructing, did all he could of 

 outside work : meteorological, barometric, hydrographic, oro- 

 graphic and glacialistic. The hydrographic work was the care- 

 ful sounding of Lake Neuchatel (in all 1100 soundings) as the 

 commencement of a study of the annual variation in the tem- 

 perature of the waters of the Swiss lakes. His chief research — 

 that on the distribution of the bowlders or erratics over Switzer- 

 land, occupied him "single-handed, seven laborious summers, 

 from 1840 to 1847," he allowing himself, only " at the end of 

 his working season, the pleasure of a visit of a few days to the 



