1834-1837: AGE 27-30.
First Visit to England.
Reception by Scientific Men.
Work on Fossil Fishes there.
Liberality of English Naturalists.
First Relations with American Science.
Farther Correspondence with Humboldt.
Second Visit to England.
Continuation of "Fossil Fishes."
Other Scientific Publications.
Attention drawn to Glacial Phenomena.
Summer at Bex with Charpentier.
Sale of Original Drawings for "Fossil Fishes."
Meeting of Helvetic Society.
Address on Ice-Period.
Letters from Humboldt and Von Buch.
In August, 1834, according to his cherished hope, Agassiz went to England, and was received by the scientific men with a cordial sympathy which left not a day or an hour of his short sojourn there unoccupied. The following letter from Buckland is one of many proffering hospitality and friendly advice on his arrival.
DR. BUCKLAND TO LOUIS AGASSIZ.
OXFORD, August 26, 1834.
. . .I am rejoiced to hear of your safe arrival in London, and write to say that I am in Oxford, and that I shall be most happy to receive you and give you a bed in my house if you can come here immediately. I expect M. Arago and Mr. Pentland from Paris tomorrow (Wednesday) afternoon. I shall be most happy to show you our Oxford Museum on Thursday or Friday, and to proceed with you toward Edinburgh. Sir Philip Egerton has a fine collection of fossil fishes near Chester, which you should visit on your road. I have partly engaged myself to be with him on Monday, September 1st, but I think it would be desirable for you to go to him Saturday, that you may have time to take drawings of his fossil fishes.
I cannot tell certainly what day I shall leave Oxford until I see M. Arago, whom I hope you will meet at my house, on your arrival in Oxford. I shall hope to see you Wednesday evening or Thursday morning. Pray come to my house in Christ Church, with your baggage, the moment you reach Oxford. . .
Agassiz always looked back with delight on this first visit to Great Britain. It was the beginning of his life-long friendship with Buckland, Sedgwick, Murchison, Lyell, and others of like pursuits and interests. Made welcome in many homes, he could scarcely respond to all the numerous invitations, social and scientific, which followed the Edinburgh meeting.
Guided by Dr. Buckland, to whom not only every public and private collection, but every rare specimen in the United Kingdom, seems to have been known, he wandered from treasure to treasure. Every day brought its revelation, until, under the accumulation of new facts, he almost felt himself forced to begin afresh the work he had believed well advanced. He might have been discouraged by a wealth of resources which seemed to open countless paths, leading he knew not whither, but for the generosity of the English naturalists who allowed him to cull, out of sixty or more collections, two thousand specimens of fossil fishes, and to send them to London, where, by the kindness of the Geological Society, he was permitted to deposit them in a room in Somerset House. The mass of materials once sifted and arranged, the work of comparison and identification became comparatively easy. He sent at once for his faithful artist, Mr. Dinkel, who began, without delay, to copy all such specimens as threw new light on the history of fossil fishes, a work which detained him in England for several years.
Agassiz made at this time two friends, whose sympathy and cooperation in his scientific work were invaluable to him for the rest of his life. Sir Philip Egerton and Lord Cole (Earl of Enniskillen) owned two of the most valuable collections of fossil fishes in Great Britain.* (* Now the property of the British Museum.) To aid him in his researches, their most precious specimens were placed at Agassiz's disposition; his artist was allowed to work for months on their collections, and even after Agassiz came to America, they never failed to share with him, as far as possible, the advantages arising from the increase of their museums. From this time his correspondence with them, and especially with Sir Philip Egerton, is closely connected with the ever-growing interest as well as with the difficulties of his scientific career. Reluctantly, and with many a backward look, he left England in October, and returned to his lectures in Neuchatel, taking with him such specimens as were indispensable to the progress of his work. Every hour of the following winter which could be spared from his lectures was devoted to his fossil fishes.