158 



Louis Agassiz. 



he believed would result in important discoveries to 

 science. He wrote to Mr. Peirce at this time : If 

 this world of ours is the work of intelligence and not 

 merely the product of force and matter, the human 

 mind, as a part of the whole, should so chime with 

 it, that from what is known it may reach the un- 

 known. If this be so, the knowledge gathered, 

 should, within the limits of error which its imperfec- 

 tion renders unavoidable, enable us to foretell what 

 we are likely to find in the deepest abysses of the 

 sea." 



He thought that the abyssmal portions of the 

 deep sea would be found to contain forms which 

 would resemble those of earlier geological times, and 

 he went so far as to name species he hoped to dis- 

 cover. He expected to find an immediate ancestor 

 of the trilobite, star-fish, and other forms, but in this 

 was disappointed. 



The subject of glaciers still occupied his attention 

 and he felt assured that the deep sea would divulge 

 some of the secrets. This is referred to in the same 

 letter to Mr. Peirce, which was published in the 

 Bulletin of the Co7nparative Museum of Zoology : 



There is, however, still one kind of evidence 

 wanting, to remove all doubt that the greater exten- 

 sion of glaciers in former ages was connected with 

 cosmic changes in the physical condition of our 

 globe — namely, all the phenomena relating to the 

 glacial period must be found in the southern hemi- 

 sphere, accompanied by the same characteristic 

 features as in the north, but with this essential dif- 

 ference — that everything must be reversed. The 



