He writes back to Lyell: "You cannot imagine the joy your letter has given me. The prize awarded me is at once so unexpected an honor and so welcome an aid that I could hardly believe my eyes when, with tears of relief and gratitude, I read your letter. In the presence of a savant, I need not be ashamed of my penury, since I have spent the little I had wholly in scientific researches. I do not, therefore, hesitate to confess to you that at no time could your gift have given me greater pleasure. Generous friends have helped me to bring out the first number of my 'Fossil Fishes;' the plates of the second are finished, but I was greatly embarrassed to know how to print a sufficient number of copies before the returns from the first should be paid in. The text is ready also, so that now, in a fortnight, I can begin the distribution, and, the rotation once established, I hope that preceding numbers will always enable me to publish the next in succession without interruption. I even count upon this resource as affording me the means of making a journey to England before long." In August, 1834, Agassiz went to England, and there formed delightful friendships with such men as Lyell, Murchison, Buckland, and others. He was allowed to cull, from sixty or more collections, some two thousand fossil fishes, and deposit them in the Somerset House in London, where Mr. Dinkel, the artist, remained for several years at work, copying. In the summer of 1836, he began his remarkable study of the glaciers. He was so cramped for means to carry forward his "Fossil Fishes," that it seemed probable that he must discontinue it, when opportunely his original drawings were purchased by Lord Francis Egerton and given to the British Museum. The financial condition was thus bettered for a time. His investigation of the slopes of the Jura led to an address before the Helvetic Association assembled at Neuchâtel in 1837, in which he said: "Siberian winter established itself for a time over a world previously covered with a rich vegetation and peopled with large mammalia, similar to those now inhabiting the warm regions of India and Africa. Death enveloped all nature in a shroud, and the cold, having reached its highest degree, gave to this mass of ice, at the maximum of tension, the greatest possible hardness." He showed how huge boulders had been distributed over the continent. His views excited much opposition, from most of the older geologists. Even Humboldt said, "Your ice frightens me." But the discussion convinced the scientific world that Agassiz was both original and brilliant. He was soon called to a professorship of geology and mineralogy at Geneva, with a salary of three thousand francs, and also to Lausanne; but he refused both offers. So pleased were the people of Neuchâtel that they made him accept a present of six thousand francs, payable during three years.