86 Charles Schuchert — Historical Geology, 1818-1918. 



then meeting at St. Bernard's. Venetz "told the Society 

 that his observations led him to believe that the whole 

 Yalais has been formerly covered by an immense glacier 

 and that it even extended ontside of the canton, covering 

 all the Canton de Vaud, as far as the Jura Mountains, 

 carrying the boulders and erratic materials, which are 

 now scattered all over the large Swiss valley." Eight 

 years earlier, in 1821, similar views had been presented 

 by the same modest naturalist before the Helvetic 

 Society, but it was not until 1833 that De Charpentier 

 found the manuscript and had it published. Venetz 's 

 conclusions were that all of the glaciers of the Bagnes 

 valley "have very recognizable moraines, which are 

 about a league from the present ice." "The moraines 

 ... . date from an epoch which is lost in the night of 

 time." Then in 1834 De Charpentier read a paper 

 before the same society, meeting at Lucerne. "Seldom, 

 if ever, has such a small memoir so deeply excited the 

 scientific world. It was received at first with incredulity 

 and even scorn and mockery, Agassiz being among its 

 opponents." The paper was published in 1835, first at 

 Paris, then at Geneva, and finally in Germany. It 

 "attracted much attention, and the smile of incredulity 

 with which it was received when read at Lucerne soon 

 changed into a desire to know more about it. ' ' 



Louis Agassiz (1807-1873), who had long been ac- 

 quainted with his countryman, De Charpentier, spent 

 several months with him in 1836, and together they 

 studied the glaciers of the Alps. Agassiz was at first 

 "adverse to the hypothesis, and did not believe in the 

 great extension of glaciers and their transportation of 

 boulders, but on the contrary, was a partisan of Ly ell's 

 theory of transport by icebergs and ice-cakes . . . but 

 from being an adversary of the glacial theory, he 

 returned to Neuchatel an enthusiastic convert to the 

 views of Venetz and De Charpentier. . . . With his 

 power of quick perception, his unmatched memory, his 

 perspicacity and acuteness, his way of classifying, judg- 

 ing and marshalling facts, Agassiz promptly learned the 

 whole mass of irresistible arguments collected patiently 

 during seven years by De Charpentier and Venetz, and 

 with his insatiable appetite and that faculty of assimila- 

 tion which he possessed in such a wonderful degree, he 



