Agassiz and Forbes

Abstract

MR. GEORGE FORBES has, in NATURE of May 22, given his version of the controversy between Agassiz and Forbes. I had no intention, in a former note, of reviving, for the benefit of the readers of NATURE, this unpleasant subject; but simply wished to protest against the ex cathedra statements of the reviewer of Tyndall. The materials for an impartial discussion of the history of glacier work are accessible to all investigators, and when it comes to be written, Agassiz and Forbes will obtain due credit for their share of the work. One of the points at issue between Forbes and Agassiz is not a matter “of facts to be proved or disproved by facts.” The conversation between Agassiz and Forbes (Heath as witness for Forbes) held on the first day of their sojourn on the Aar Glacier, refers simply to a difference of opinion on the explanation of certain bands (observed previously by several persons, and well known to Agassiz). The nature of these bands has to this day remained problematical and why Agassiz, when writing to Humboldt that he had observed these bands at a depth of 120ft. in the body of the glacier, should give any credit to Forbes passes all understanding. This observation was made after Forbes's departure, and Agassiz certainly needed no “reconciliation with his conscience” to describe this as “le fait le plus nouveau que j'ai observé.” The testimony of Mr. Heath is of no value, for it certainly would be the height of presumption, in a man without any previous acquaintance with glaciers to undertake to decide in a few lines, a point to this day a subject of controversy among investigators of glaciers; his endorsement of the claims of Forbes is as ridiculous as the attempt made by a prominent Swiss geologist (who gives his testimony in favour of Forbes), to ignore the claims of Agassiz, by passing his name over in silence when writing the history of geological science in Switzerland.