Agassiz to Humboldt.
（London), October—, 1835.
. . . I cannot express to you my pleasure in reading your letter of May 10th (which was, unhappily, only delivered to me on my passage through Carlsruhe, at the end of July). . . . To know that I have occupied your thoughts a moment, especially in days of trial and sorrow such as you have had to bear, raises me in my own eyes, and redoubles my hope for the future.
And just now such encouragement is particularly cheering under the difficulties which I meet in completing my task in England.
I have now been here nearly two months, and I hope before leaving to finish the description of all that I brought together at the Geological Society last year.
Knowing that you are in Paris, however, I cannot resist the temptation of going to see you; indeed, should your stay be prolonged for some weeks, it would be my most direct path for home.
I should like to tell you a little of what I have done, and how the world has gone with me since we last met. . . . I have certainly committed an imprudence in throwing myself into an enterprise so vast in proportion to my means as my ‘Fossil ’