[344]
It continued to be a grief to Agassiz that Humboldt, the oldest of all his scientific friends, and the one whose opinion he most reverenced, still remained incredulous.
Humboldt's letters show that Agassiz did not willingly renounce the hope of making him a convert.
Agassiz's own letters to Humboldt are missing from this time onward.
Overwhelmed with occupation, and more at his ease in his relations with the older scientific men, he had ceased to make the rough drafts in which his earlier correspondence is recorded.
Humboldt to Agassiz.
Berlin, March 2, 1842.
. . . When one has been so long separated, even accidentally, from a friend as I have been from you, my dear Agassiz, it is difficult to find beginning or end to a letter.
The kindly remembrance which you send me is evidence that my long silence has not seemed strange to you. . . . . It would be wasting words to tell you how I have been prevented, by the distractions of my life, always increasing with old age, from acknowledging the admirable things received from you,—upon living and fossil fishes, echinoderms, and glaciers.
My admiration of your 