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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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