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The impression will in some degree be transmitted by these pleasant and timely volumes, which should make the leading lines of the life of Agassiz clear to the newer generation, and deepen them in the memory of an older one. Extracts from "Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," by ARCH. GEIKIE, LL.D., F.R.S.
Let us leave the mighty stream, and wander amidst the picturesque windings of an igarape, into the depths of the forest, with Professor Agassiz. Passing into its narrow entrance, the lofty trees arching overhead shelter the voyager in his light canoe from the glaring heat of the noonday sun. The air is cool and refreshing.
I should exceed the limits of this work, were I to attempt to give a full description of all the geographical circumstances attending these singular terraces, or to discuss the ingenious theories which have been severally proposed to account for them by Dr. Macculloch, Sir T. Lauder, and Messrs. Darwin, Agassiz, Milne, and Chambers.
A sliding scale for meals allowed the greatest freedom for excursions along the neighboring shores and beaches, and punctuality in work was the only punctuality demanded. Agassiz himself was necessarily often absent, for the maintenance of the little colonydepended in great degree upon his exertions.
In 1837 Agassiz had introduced his theory to the world, in a paper read at Neuchatel, and three years later he published his famous Etudes sur les Glaciers, from which we have just quoted. Never did idea make a more profound disturbance in the scientific world.
Agassiz had determined, before starting on his journey, to complete all his unfinished works, and to put in order his correspondence and collections, including the vast amount of specimens sent him for identification or for his own researches. The task of "setting his house in order" for a change which, perhaps, he dimly felt to be more momentous than it seemed, proved long and laborious.
Between 1860 and 1870 he gave four courses of lectures in Boston which were well and profitably attended. No one else could have done this, except perhaps Agassiz. There were others who drew larger houses, but the quality was not so good. Very rarely have such cultivated and intellectual audiences been brought together.
This growth is still in full activity, and assuming the rate of advance of the land to be one foot in a century, the reefs being built up from a depth of 75 feet, and that each reef has in its turn added ten miles to the coast, Professor Agassiz calculates that it has taken 135,000 years to form the southern half of this peninsula. They consisted of jaws and teeth, with some bones of the foot.
There are two considerations which may have misled Mr. Powers. One, a pecuniary one, which he should have disposed of as did Agassiz, when such was advanced to induce him to give lyceum lectures: "Sir, I cannot afford to make money!" The other may have been the weight of the prevailing error that portrait-sculpture is a less honorable branch of Art. Less than what? The historical?
But this limit of power is not coextensive with any system of morals. For the most part it falls far within the lines of any such system, and in some cases may extend beyond them, for reasons drawn from the habits of a particular people at a particular time. I once heard the late Professor Agassiz say that a German population would rise if you added two cents to the price of a glass of beer.
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