These excursions, though not without their dangers and fatigues, were full of charm for men who, however serious their aims, were still young enough to enter like boys into the spirit of adventure. Agassiz himself was but thirty-one; an ardent pedestrian, he delighted in feats of walking and climbing. His friend Dinkel relates that one day, while pausing at Grindelwald for refreshment, they met an elderly traveler who asked him, after listening awhile to their gay talk, in which appeals were constantly made to "Agassiz," if that was perhaps the son of the celebrated professor of Neuchatel. The answer amazed him; he could hardly believe that the young man before him was the naturalist of European reputation. In connection with this journey occurs the first attempt at an English letter found among Agassiz's papers. It is addressed to Buckland, and contains this passage: "Since I saw the glaciers I am quite of a snowy humor, and will have the whole surface of the earth covered with ice, and the whole prior creation dead by cold. In fact, I am quite satisfied that ice must be taken [included] in every complete explanation of the last changes which occurred at the surface of Europe." Considered in connection with their subsequent work together in the ancient ice-beds and moraines of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, it is curious to find Buckland answering: "I am sorry that I cannot entirely adopt the new theory you advocate to explain transported blocks by moraines; for supposing it adequate to explain the phenomena of Switzerland, it would not apply to the granite blocks and transported gravel of England, which I can only explain by referring to currents of water." During the same summer Mrs. Buckland writes from Interlaken, in the course of a journey in Switzerland with her husband. . ."We have made a good tour of the Oberland and have seen glaciers, etc., but Dr. Buckland is as far as ever from agreeing with you." We shall see hereafter how completely he became a convert to Agassiz's glacial theory in its widest acceptation.