Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/272

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

der Braun. This period was one of the critical points in Guyot's career. There was formed that close and tender friendship with Agassiz which lasted until the latter's death, and found its final expression in the beautiful memoir of Agassiz which Guyot prepared for the National Academy of Sciences in 1877. But of still greater importance was the impulse toward the study of science which he received from the enthusiastic group of young naturalists with whom he was thus brought into daily and hourly contact. He says of this period: "My remembrances of these few months of alternate work and play, attended by so much real progress, are among the most delightful of my early days.... It would be idle to attempt to determine the measure of mutual benefit derived by these young students of Nature from their meeting under such favorable circumstances. It certainly was very great, and we need no other proof of the strong impulse they all received from it than the new ardor with which each pursued and subsequently performed his life-work."

In 1829 young Guyot went to Berlin in order to complete the theological studies which he had begun at Neufchâtel; but the love of science was strong within him, and the new field which the lectures of Steffens, Hegel, and Ritter opened up to his view decided him to enter upon the study of Nature as his life-work. Having thus decided, he determined to lay his foundations broad and deep, and with this end in view he attended lectures on nearly all departments of natural science: chemistry, physics, meteorology, zoölogy, geology, and physical geography, alike received attention, and his subsequent career showed the great wisdom of this thorough preparation. In 1835 he received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, and at once proceeded to Paris. Here he resided more than four years, quietly pursuing his preparatory studies and extending them in vacation by tours of observation through various European countries. He also took up the subject of history under Michelet, and, like everything else which he touched, made it valuable in the great pursuit of his life, the study of earth and man.

In the spring of 1838 Agassiz came to Paris, enthusiastic upon the subject of glaciers, and this induced Guyot to turn his attention in the same direction. In the summer of the same year he went to Switzerland and began his work on the glaciers of that country. The results of the summer's work were presented in a paper before the Geological Society of France during the session of 1838, at Porrentuy. This paper is mentioned in the "Proceedings" of the society ("Bulletin," vol. ix, p. 407), but, owing to a long illness of the author during the following winter, it could not be printed. The great laws of glacial phenomena first enunciated by Guyot in this paper were afterward announced as new discoveries by other observers, and were the occasion of bitter quarrels. Afterward, when a discussion arose between Forbes and Agassiz, the manuscript was, on motion of Agassiz, and by