Winning Fame. 



63 



accumulated knowledge and outlined to his inter- 

 ested hearers a theory which in later years was ac- 

 cepted by the scientific world at large. His views 

 astonished his auditors, and as they became spread 

 abroad he drew the entire school of glacial students 

 about him, — Von Buch, Elie de Beaumont, Charpen- 

 tier, and even Humboldt. 



This conversion was not immediate, as at first he 

 was attacked from all sides. Von Buch, whom a con- 

 temporary said, was not famous for sweetness of 

 temper," became incensed at Agassiz and would not 

 even listen to the theories which he so boldly an- 

 nounced and so completely supported. Yet Agassiz 

 was prepared for antagonism and was especially ready 

 for his friend Von Buch as is shown in the following 

 closing remark in his speech which was evidently 

 intended to mollify the irate scientist : " When M. 

 Von Buch affirmed for the first time, in the face of 

 the formidable school of Werner, that granite is of 

 plutonic origin, and that the mountains were raised, 

 what said the Neptunists ? He was at first alone 

 in his support of the theory, and it was only by 

 defending it with the conviction of genius that he 

 made it prevail. Happily, in scientific matters, 

 numerical majorities have never at first decided any 

 question.'* 



Agassiz seemed to grasp the situation at once. He 

 saw from the evidences before him a glacial sheet of 

 ice covering all Europe, appearing and disappearing 

 according to the changes of temperature in vast eras 

 of time. He pictured the earth, covered with vege- 

 tation, gradually encompassed by a sheet of ice that 



