(1.) Is it possible, according to the known laws of actual nature, or is it probable, on any analogies of nature, that the vast series of fish, from those of the Ludlow rock and the Old Red Sandstone to those of our actual seas, lakes, and rivers, are derived from one common original low type, in the way of development and by propagation or natural breeding? I should say, NO. But my knowledge is feeble and at second-hand. Yours is strong and from the fountain-head.

(2.) Is the organic type of fish higher now than it was during the carboniferous period, when the Sauroids so much abounded? If the progressive theory of Geoffroy be true, in his sense, each class of animals ought to be progressive in its organic type. It appears to me that this is not true. Pray tell me your own views on this point.

(3.) There are "ODD FISH" (as we say in jest) in the Old Red Sandstone. Do these so graduate into crustaceans as to form anything like such an organic link that one could, by generation, come naturally from the other? I should say, NO, being instructed by your labors. Again, allowing this, for the sake of argument, are there not much higher types of fish which are contemporaneous with the lower types (if, indeed, they be lower), and do not these nobler fish of the Old Red Sandstone stultify the hypothesis of natural generative development?

(4.) Will you give me, in a few general words, your views of the scale occupied by the fish of the Old Red, considered as a natural group? Are they so rudimentary as to look like abortions or creatures derived from some inferior class, which have not yet by development reached the higher type of fish? Again, I should say, NO; but I long for an answer from a great authority like yours. I am most anxious for a good general conception of the fish of the Old Red, with reference to some intelligible scale.

(5.) Lastly, is there the shadow of ground for supposing that by any natural generative development the Ichthyosaurians and other kindred forms of reptile have come from Sauroid, or any other type of fish? I believe you will say, NO. At any rate, the facts of geology lend no support to such a view, for the nobler forms of Reptile appear in strata below those in which the Ichthyosaurians, etc., are first seen. But I must not trouble you with more questions. Professor Whewell is now Master of Trinity College. We shall all rejoice to see you.

Ever, my dear Professor, your most faithful and most grateful friend,

A. SEDGWICK.

FROM LOUIS AGASSIZ TO A. SEDGWICK.

NEUCHATEL, June, 1845.

. . .I reproach myself for not acknowledging at once your most interesting letter of April 10th. But you will easily understand that in the midst of the rush of work consequent upon my preparation for a journey of several years' duration I have not noticed the flight of time since I received it, until to-day, when the sight of the date fills me with confusion. And yet, for years, I have not received a letter which has given me greater pleasure or moved me more deeply. I have felt in it and have received from it that vigor of conviction which gives to all you say or write a virile energy, captivating alike to the listener or the reader. Like you, I am pained by the progress of certain tendencies in the domain of the natural sciences; it is not only the arid character of this philosophy of nature (and by this I mean, not NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, but the "Natur-philosophie" of the Germans and French) which alarms me. I dread quite as much the exaggeration of religious fanaticism, borrowing fragments from science, imperfectly or not at all understood, and then making use of them to prescribe to scientific men what they are allowed to see or to find in Nature. Between these two extremes it is difficult to follow a safe road. The reason is, perhaps, that the domain of facts has not yet received a sufficiently general recognition, while traditional beliefs still have too much influence upon the study of the sciences.

Wishing to review such ideas as I had formed upon these questions, I gave a public course this winter upon the plan of creation as shown in the development of the animal kingdom. I wish I could send it to you, for I think it might please you. Unhappily, I had no time to write it out, and have not even an outline of it. But I intend to work further upon this subject and make a book upon it one of these days. If I speak of it to-day it is because in this course I have treated all the questions upon which you ask my opinion. Let me answer them here after a somewhat aphoristic fashion.

I find it impossible to attribute the biological phenomena, which have been and still are going on upon the surface of our globe, to the simple action of physical forces. I believe they are due, in their entirety, as well as individually, to the direct intervention of a creative power, acting freely and in an autonomic way. . .I have tried to make this intentional plan in the organization of the animal kingdom evident, by showing that the differences between animals do not constitute a material chain, analogous to a series of physical phenomena, bound together by the same law, but present themselves rather as the phases of a thought, formulated according to a definite aim. I think we know enough of comparative anatomy to abandon forever the idea of the transformation of the organs of one type into those of another. The metamorphoses of certain animals, and especially of insects, so often cited in support of this idea, prove, by the fixity with which they repeat themselves in innumerable species, exactly the contrary. In the persistency of these metamorphoses, distinct for each species and known to repeat themselves annually in a hundred thousand species, and to have done so ever since the present order of things was established on the earth, have we not the most direct proof that the diversity of types is not due to external natural influences? I have followed this idea in all the types of the animal kingdom. I have also tried to show the direct intervention of a creative power in the geographical distribution of organized beings on the surface of the globe when the species are definitely circumscribed. As evidence of the fixity of generic types and the existence of a higher and free causal power, I have made use of a method which appears to me new as a process of reasoning. The series of reptiles, for instance, in the family of lizards, shows apodal forms, forms with rudimentary feet, then with a successively larger number of fingers until we reach, by seemingly insensible gradations, the genera Anguis, Ophisaurus, and Pseudopus, the Chamosauria, Chirotes, Bipes, Sepo, Scincus, and at last the true lizards. It would seem to any reasonable man that these types are the transformations of a single primitive type, so closely do the modifications approach each other; and yet I now reject any such supposition, and after having studied the facts most thoroughly, I find in them a direct proof of the creation of all these species. It must not be forgotten that the genus Anguis belongs to Europe, the Ophisaurus to North America, the Pseudopus to Dalmatia and the Caspian steppe, the Sepo to Italy, etc. Now, I ask how portions of the earth so absolutely distinct could have combined to form a continuous zoological series, now so strikingly distributed, and whether the idea of this development could have started from any other source than a creative purpose manifested in space? These same purposes, this same constancy in the employment of means toward a final end, may be read still more clearly in the study of the fossils of the different creations. The species of all the creations are materially and genealogically as distinct from each other as those of the different points on the surface of the globe. I have compared hundreds of species reputed identical in various successive deposits,—species which are always quoted in favor of a transition, however indirect, from one group of species to another, —and I have always found marked specific differences between them. In a few weeks I will send you a paper which I have just printed on this subject, where it seems to me this view is very satisfactorily proved. The idea of a procreation of new species by preceding ones is a gratuitous supposition opposed to all sound physiological notions. And yet it is true that, taken as a whole, there is a gradation in the organized beings of successive geological formations, and that the end and aim of this development is the appearance of man. But this serial connection of all successive creatures is not material; taken singly these groups of species show no relation through intermediate forms genetically derived one from the other. The connection between them becomes evident only when they are considered as a whole emanating from a creative power, the author of them all. To your special questions I may now very briefly reply.

Have fishes descended from a primitive type? So far am I from thinking this possible, that I do not believe there is a single specimen of fossil or living fish, whether marine or fresh-water, that has not been created with reference to a special intention and a definite aim, even though we may be able to detect but a portion of these numerous relations and of the essential purpose.

Are the present fishes superior to the older ones? As a general proposition, I would say, NO; it seems to me even that the fishes which preceded the appearance of reptiles in the plan of creation were higher in certain characters than those which succeeded them; and it is a strange fact that these ancient fishes have something analogous with reptiles, which had not then made their appearance. One would say that they already existed in the creative thought, and that their coming, not far removed, was actually anticipated.

Can the fishes of the Old Red be considered the embryos of those of later epochs? Of course they are the first types of the vertebrate series, including the most ancient of the Silurian system; but they each constitute an independent fauna, as numerous in the places where these earlier fishes are found, as the present fishes in any area of similar extent on our sea-shore to-day. I now know one hundred and four species of fossil fish from the Old Red, belonging to forty-four genera, comprised under seven families, between several of which there is but little analogy as to organization. It is therefore impossible to look upon them as coming from one primitive stock. The primitive diversity of these types is quite as remarkable as that of those belonging to later epochs. It is nevertheless true that, regarded as part of the general plan of creation, this fauna presents itself as an inferior type of the vertebrate series, connecting itself directly in the creative thought with the realization of later forms, the last of which (and this seems to me to have been the general end of creation) was to place man at the head of organized beings as the key-stone and term of the whole series, the final point in the premeditated intention of the primitive plan which has been carried out progressively in the course of time. I would even say that I believe the creation of man has closed creation on this earth, and I draw this conclusion from the fact that the human genus is the first cosmopolite type in Nature. One may even affirm that man is clearly announced in the phases of organic development of the animal kingdom as the final term of this series.

Lastly: Is there any reason to believe that the Ichthyosaurians are descendants of the Sauroid fishes which preceded the appearance of these reptiles? Not the least. I should consider any naturalist who would seriously present the question in this light as incapable of discussing it or judging it. He would place himself outside of the facts and would reason from a basis of his own creating. . .

In the "Revue Suisse" of April, 1845, there is a notice of the course of lectures to which reference is made in the above letter.

"A numerous audience assembled on the 26th of March for the opening of a course by Professor Agassiz on the 'Plan of Creation.' It is with an ever new pleasure that our public come together to listen to this savant, still so young and already so celebrated. Not content with pursuing in seclusion his laborious scientific investigations, he makes a habit of communicating, almost annually, to an audience less restricted than that of the Academy the general result of some of his researches. All the qualities to which Mr. Agassiz has accustomed his listeners were found in the opening prelude; the fullness and freedom of expression which give to his lectures the character of a scientific causerie; the dignified ease of bearing, joined with the simplicity and candor of a savant who teaches neither by aphorisms nor oracles, but who frankly admits the public to the results of his researches; the power of generalization always based upon a patient study of facts, which he knows how to present with remarkable clearness in a language that all can understand. We will not follow the professor in tracing the outlines of his course. Suffice it to say that he intends to show in the general development of the animal kingdom the existence of a definite preconceived plan, successively carried out; in other words, the manifestation of a higher thought,—the thought of God. This creative thought may be studied under three points of view: as shown in the relations which, spite of their manifold diversity, connect all the species now living on the surface of the globe; in their geographical distribution; and in the succession of beings from primitive epochs until the present condition of things."

The summer of 1845 was the last which Agassiz passed at home. It was broken by a short and hurried visit to the glacier of the Aar, respecting which no details have been preserved. He did not then know that he was taking a final leave of his cabin among the rocks and ice. Affairs connected with the welfare of the institution in Neuchatel, with which he had been so long connected, still detained him for a part of the winter, and he did not leave for Paris until the first week in March, 1846. His wife and daughters had already preceded him to Germany, where he was to join them again on his way to Paris, and where they were to pass the period of his absence, under the care of his brother-in-law, Mr. Alexander Braun, then living at Carlsruhe. His son was to remain at school at Neuchatel.

It was two o'clock at night when he left his home of so many years. There had been a general sadness at the thought of his departure, and every testimony of affection and respect accompanied him. The students came in procession with torch-lights to give him a parting serenade, and many of his friends and colleagues were also present to bid him farewell. M. Louis Favre says in his Memoir, "Great was the emotion at Neuchatel when the report was spread abroad that Agassiz was about to leave for a long journey. It is true he promised to come back, but the New World might shower upon him such marvels that his return could hardly be counted upon. The young people, the students, regretted their beloved professor not only for his scientific attainments, but for his kindly disposition, the charm of his eloquence, the inspiration of his teaching; they regretted also the gay, animated, untiring companion of their excursions, who made them acquainted with nature, and knew so well how to encourage and interest them in their studies."

Pausing at Carlsruhe on his journey, he proceeded thence to Paris, where he was welcomed with the greatest cordiality by scientific men. In recognition of his work on the "Fossil Fishes" the Monthyon Prize of Physiology was awarded him by the Academy. He felt this distinction the more because the bearing of such investigations upon experimental physiology had never before been pointed out, and it showed that he had succeeded in giving a new direction and a more comprehensive character to paleontological research. He passed some months in Paris, busily occupied with the publication of the "Systeme Glaciaire," his second work on the glacial phenomena. The "Etudes sur les Glaciers" had simply contained a resume of all the researches undertaken upon the Alpine fields of ice and the results obtained up to 1840, inclusive of the author's own work and his wider interpretation of the facts. The "Systeme Glaciaire" was, on the contrary, an account of a connected plan of investigation during a succession of years, upon a single glacier, with its geodetic and topographic features, its hydrography, its internal structure, its atmospheric conditions, its rate of annual and diurnal progress, and its relations to surrounding glaciers. All the local phenomena, so far as they could be observed, were subjected to a strict scrutiny, and the results corrected by careful comparison, during five seasons. As we have seen, and as Agassiz himself says in his Preface, this band of workers had "lived in the intimacy of the glacier, striving to draw from it the secret of its formation and its annual advance." The work was accompanied by three maps and nine plates. In such a volume of detail there is no room for picturesque description, and little is told of the wonderful scenes they witnessed by day and night, nothing of personal peril and adventure.

This task concluded, he went to England, where he was to spend the few remaining days previous to his departure. Among the last words of farewell which reached him just as he was leaving the Old World, little thinking then that he was to make a permanent home in America, were these lines from Humboldt, written at Sans Souci: "Be happy in this new undertaking, and preserve for me the first place under the head of friendship in your heart. When you return I shall be here no more, but the king and queen will receive you on this 'historic hill' with the affection which, for so many reasons, you merit. . ."

"Your illegible but much attached friend,

"A. HUMBOLDT."

So closed this period of Agassiz's life. The next was to open in new scenes, under wholly different conditions. He sailed for America in September, 1846.

PART 2.

IN AMERICA.

CHAPTER 13.

1846: AGE 39.

Arrival at Boston. Previous Correspondence with Charles Lyell and Mr. John A. Lowell concerning Lectures at the Lowell Institute. Relations with Mr. Lowell. First Course of Lectures. Character of Audience. Home Letter giving an Account of his first Journey in the United States. Impressions of Scientific Men, Scientific Institutions and Collections.

AGASSIZ arrived in Boston during the first week of October, 1846. He had not come to America without some prospect of employment beside that comprised in his immediate scientific aims. In 1845, when his plans for a journey in the United States began to take definite shape, he had written to ask Lyell whether, notwithstanding his imperfect English, he might not have some chance as a public lecturer, hoping to make in that way additional provision for his scientific expenses beyond the allowance he was to receive from the King of Prussia. Lyell's answer, written by his wife, was very encouraging.

LONDON, February 28, 1845.

. . .My husband thinks your plan of lecturing a very good one, and sure to succeed, for the Americans are fond of that kind of instruction. We remember your English was pleasant, and if you have been practicing since, you have probably gained facility in expression, and a little foreign accent would be no drawback. You might give your lectures in several cities, but he would like very much if you could give a course at the Lowell Institute at Boston, an establishment which pays very highly. . .In six weeks you might earn enough to pay for a twelve months' tour, besides passing an agreeable time at Boston, where there are several eminent naturalists. . .As my husband is writing to Mr. Lowell to-morrow upon other matters, he will ask him whether there is any course still open, for he feels sure in that case they would be glad to have you. . .Mr. Lowell is sole trustee of the Institute, and can nominate whom he pleases. It was very richly endowed for the purpose of lectures by a merchant of Boston, who died a few years ago. You will get nothing like the same remuneration anywhere else. . .

Lyell and Mr. Lowell soon arranged all preliminaries, and it was understood that Agassiz should begin his tour in the United States by a course of lectures in Boston before the Lowell Institute. A month or two before sailing he writes as follows to Mr. Lowell.

PARIS, July 6, 1846.

. . .Time is pressing, summer is running away, and I feel it a duty to write to you about the contemplated lectures, that you may not be uncertain about them. So far as the subject is concerned, I am quite ready; all the necessary illustrations are also completed, and if I am not mistaken they must by this time be in your hands . . .I understand from Mr. Lyell that you wish me to lecture in October. For this also I am quite prepared, as I shall, immediately after my arrival in Boston, devote all my time to the consideration of my course. If a later date should suit your plans better, I have no objection to conform to any of your arrangements, as I shall at all events pass the whole winter on the shores of the Atlantic, and be everywhere in reach of Boston in a very short time. . .With your approbation, I would give to my course the title of "Lectures on the Plan of the Creation, especially in the Animal Kingdom."

Thus was Agassiz introduced to the institution under whose auspices he first made acquaintance with his American audiences. There he became a familiar presence during more than a quarter of a century. The enthusiastic greeting accorded to him, as a stranger whose reputation had preceded him, ripened with years into an affectionate welcome from friends and fellow-citizens, whenever he appeared on the platform. In the director of the institution, Mr. John A. Lowell, he found a friend upon whose sympathy and wise counsels he relied in all his after years. The cordial reception he met from him and his large family circle made him at once at home in a strange land.

Never was Agassiz's power as a teacher, or the charm of his personal presence more evident than in his first course of Lowell Lectures. He was unfamiliar with the language, to the easy use of which his two or three visits in England, where most of his associates understood and spoke French, had by no means accustomed him. He would often have been painfully embarrassed but for his own simplicity of character. Thinking only of his subject and never of himself, when a critical pause came, he patiently waited for the missing word, and rarely failed to find a phrase which was expressive if not technically correct. He often said afterward that his sole preparation for these lectures consisted in shutting himself up for hours and marshaling his vocabulary, passing in review, that is, all the English words he could recall. As the Lyells had prophesied, his foreign accent rather added a charm to his address, and the pauses in which he seemed to ask the forbearance of the audience, while he sought to translate his thought for them, enlisted their sympathy. Their courtesy never failed him. His skill in drawing with chalk on the blackboard was also a great help both to him and to them. When his English was at fault he could nevertheless explain his meaning by illustrations so graphic that the spoken word was hardly missed. He said of himself that he was no artist, and that his drawing was accurate simply because the object existed in his mind so clearly. However this may be, it was always pleasant to watch the effect of his drawings on the audience. When showing, for instance, the correspondence of the articulate type, as a whole, with the metamorphoses of the higher insects, he would lead his listeners along the successive phases of insect development, talking as he drew and drawing as he talked, till suddenly the winged creature stood declared upon the blackboard, almost as if it had burst then and there from the chrysalis, and the growing interest of his hearers culminated in a burst of delighted applause.

After the first lecture in Boston there was no doubt of his success. He carried his audience captive. His treatment of the animal kingdom on the broad basis of the comparative method, in which the great types were shown in their relation to each other and to the physical history of the world, was new to his hearers. Agassiz had also the rare gift of divesting his subject of technicalities and superfluous details. His special facts never obscured the comprehensive outline, which they were intended to fill in and illustrate.

This simplicity of form and language was especially adapted to the audience he had now to address, little instructed in the facts or the nomenclature of science, though characterized by an eager curiosity. A word respecting the quality of the Lowell Institute audience of those days, as new to the European professor as he to them, is in place here. The institution was intended by its founder to fertilize the general mind rather than to instruct the selected few. It was liberally endowed, the entrance was free, and the tickets were drawn by lot. Consequently the working men and women had as good an opportunity for places as their employers. As the remuneration, however, was generous, and the privilege of lecturing there was coveted by literary and scientific men of the first eminence, the instruction was of a high order, and the tickets, not to be had for money, were as much in demand with the more cultivated and even with the fashionable people of the community as with their poorer neighbors. This audience, composed of strongly contrasted elements and based upon purely democratic principles, had, from the first, a marked attraction for Agassiz. A teacher in the widest sense, he sought and found his pupils in every class. But in America for the first time did he come into contact with the general mass of the people on this common ground, and it influenced strongly his final resolve to remain in this country. Indeed, the secret of his greatest power was to be found in the sympathetic, human side of his character. Out of his broad humanity grew the genial personal influence, by which he awakened the enthusiasm of his audiences for unwonted themes, inspired his students to disinterested services like his own, delighted children in the school-room, and won the cordial interest as well as the cooperation in the higher aims of science, of all classes whether rich or poor.

His first course was to be given in December. Having, therefore, a few weeks to spare, he made a short journey, stopping at New Haven to see the elder Silliman, with whom he had long been in correspondence. Shortly before leaving Europe he had written him, "I can hardly tell you with what pleasure I look forward to seeing you, and making the personal acquaintance of the distinguished savans of your country, whose works I have lately been studying with especial care. There is something captivating in the prodigious activity of the Americans, and the thought of contact with the superior men of your young and glorious republic renews my own youth." Some account of this journey, including his first impressions of the scientific men as well as the scientific societies and collections of the United States, is given in the following letter. It is addressed to his mother, and with her to a social club of intimate friends and neighbors in Neuchatel, at whose meetings he had been for years an honored guest.

BOSTON, December, 1846.

. . .Having no time to write out a complete account of my journey of last month, I will only transcribe for you some fugitive notes scribbled along the road in stages or railroad carriages. They bear the stamp of hurry and constant interruption.

Leaving Boston the 16th of October, I went by railroad to New Haven, passing through Springfield. The rapidity of the locomotion is frightful to those who are unused to it, but you adapt yourself to the speed, and soon become, like all the rest of the world, impatient of the slightest delay. I well understand that an antipathy for this mode of travel is possible. There is something infernal in the irresistible power of steam, carrying such heavy masses along with the swiftness of lightning. The habits growing out of continued contact with railroads, and the influence they exert on a portion of the community, are far from agreeable until one is familiar with them. You would cry out in dismay did you see your baggage flung about pell-mell like logs of wood, trunks, chests, traveling-bags, hat-boxes, all in the same mill, and if here and there something goes to pieces no one is astonished; never mind! we go fast,—we gain time,—that is the essential thing.

The manners of the country differ so greatly from ours that it seems to me impossible to form a just estimate regarding them, or, indeed, to pronounce judgment at all upon a population so active and mobile as that of the Northern States of the Union, without having lived among them for a long time. I do not therefore attempt any such estimate. I can only say that the educated Americans are very accessible and very pleasant. They are obliging to the utmost degree; indeed, their cordiality toward strangers exceeds any that I have met elsewhere. I might even add that if I could complain of anything it would be of an excess, rather than a lack, of attention. I have often found it difficult to make it understood that the hotel, where I can work at my ease, suits me better than the proffered hospitality. . .

But what a country is this! all along the road between Boston and Springfield are ancient moraines and polished rocks. No one who had seen them upon the track of our present glaciers could hesitate as to the real agency by which all these erratic masses, literally covering the country, have been transported. I have had the pleasure of converting already several of the most distinguished American geologists to my way of thinking; among others, Professor Rogers, who will deliver a public lecture upon the subject next Tuesday before a large audience.

A characteristic feature of American life is to be found in the frequent public meetings where addresses are delivered. Shortly after my arrival in Boston I was present at a meeting of some three thousand workmen, foremen of workshops, clerks, and the like. No meeting could have been more respectable and well-conducted. All were neatly dressed; even the simplest laborer had a clean shirt. It was a strange sight to see such an assemblage, brought together for the purpose of forming a library, and listening attentively in perfect quiet for two hours to an address on the advantages of education, of reading, and the means of employing usefully the leisure moments of a workman's life. The most eminent men vie with each other in instructing and forming the education of the population at large. I have not yet seen a man out of employment or a beggar, except in New York, which is a sink for the emptyings of Europe. Yet do not think that I forget the advantages of our old civilization. Far from it. I feel more than ever the value of a past which belongs to you and in which you have grown up. Generations must pass before America will have the collections of art and science which adorn our cities, or the establishments for public instruction, sanctuaries as it were, consecrated by the devotion of those who give themselves wholly to study. Here all the world works to gain a livelihood or to make a fortune. Few establishments (of learning) are old enough, or have taken sufficiently deep root in the habits of the people, to be safe from innovation; very few institutions offer a combination of studies such as, in its ensemble, meets the demands of modern civilization. All is done by the single efforts of individuals or of corporations, too often guided by the needs of the moment. Thus American science lacks the scope which is characteristic of higher instruction in our old Europe. Objects of art are curiosities but little appreciated and usually still less understood. On the other hand, the whole population shares in the advanced education provided for all. . .From Springfield the railroad follows the course of the Connecticut as far as Hartford, turning then directly toward the sea-coast. The valley strikingly resembles that of the Rhine between Carlsruhe and Heidelberg. The same rock, the same aspect of country, and gres bigarre* (* Trias.) everywhere. The forest reminds one of Odenwald and of Baden-Baden. Nearer the coast are cones of basalt like those of Brissac and the Kaiserstuhl. The erratic phenomena are also very marked in this region; polished rocks everywhere, magnificent furrows on the sandstone and on the basalt, and parallel moraines defining themselves like ramparts upon the plain.

At New Haven I passed several days at the house of Professor Silliman, with whom I have been in correspondence for several years. The University (Yale) owes to the efforts of the Professor a fine collection of minerals and extensive physical and chemical apparatus. Silliman is the patriarch of science in America. For thirty years he has edited an important scientific journal, the channel through which, ever since its foundation, European scientific researches have reached America. . .One of his sons-in-law, Mr. Shepard,* (* An error: Mr. Shepard was not the son-in-law of Professor Silliman.—ED.) is also chemical professor in the University of South Carolina. Another, Mr. Dana, still a very young man, strikes me as likely to be the most distinguished naturalist of the United States. He was a member of the expedition around the world under the command of Captain Wilkes, and has just published a magnificent volume containing monographs of all the species of polyps and corals, with curious observations on their mode of growth and on the coral islands. I was surprised to find in the collection at New Haven a fine specimen of the great fossil salamander of Oeningen, the "Homo diluvii testis" of Scheuchzer.

From New Haven I went to New York by steamboat. The Sound, between Long Island and the coast of Connecticut, presents a succession of cheerful towns and villages, with single houses scattered over the country, while magnificent trees overhang the sea; we constantly disturbed numbers of aquatic birds which, at our approach, fluttered up around the steamer, only to alight farther on. I have never seen such flocks of ducks and gulls.

At New York I hastened to see Auguste Mayor, of whom my uncle will no doubt have given you news, since I wrote to him. Obliged to continue my road in order to join Mr. Gray at Princeton I stopped but one day in New York, the greater part of which I passed with Mr. Redfield, author of a paper on the fossil fishes of Connecticut. His collection, which he has placed at my disposal, has great interest for me; it contains a large number of fossil fishes of different kinds, from a formation in which but one species has been found in Europe. The new red sandstone of Connecticut will also fill a gap in the history of fossil fishes, and this acquisition is so much the more important, because, at the epoch of the gres bigarre, a marked change took place in the anatomical character of fishes. It presents an intermediate type between the primitive fishes of the ancient deposits and the more regular forms of the jurassic deposits.

Mr. Asa Gray, professor of botany at Cambridge, near Boston, had offered to accompany me on my journey to Washington. We were to meet at the house of Professor Torrey, at Princeton, a small town half a day's journey from New York, and the seat of a considerable university, one of the oldest in the United States. The physical department, under the direction of Professor Henry, is remarkably rich in models of machinery and in electrical apparatus, to which the professor especially devotes himself. The museum contains a collection of animals and fossil remains. In the environs of the town, in the ditches, is found a rare kind of turtle, remarkable for the form of the jaws and the length of the tail. I wish very much to procure one, were it only to oblige Professor Johannes Muller, of Berlin, who especially desires one for investigation. But I have failed thus far; the turtles are already withdrawn into their winter quarters. Mr. Torrey promises me some, however, in the spring. It is not easy to get them because their bite is dreaded.

After this I passed four days in Philadelphia. Here, notwithstanding my great desire to see the beautiful country along the shores of the rich bay of Delaware and the banks of the Schuylkill, between which the city lies, I was entirely occupied with the magnificent collections of the Academy of Science and of the Philosophical Society. The zoological collections of the Academy of Science are the oldest in the United States, the only ones, except those of the Wilkes Expedition, which can equal in interest those of Europe. There are the collections of Say, the earliest naturalist of distinction in the United States; there are also the fossil remains and the animals described by Harlan, by Godman, and by Hayes, and the fossils described by Conrad and Morton. Dr. Morton's unique collection of human skulls is also to be found in Philadelphia. Imagine a series of six hundred skulls, mostly Indian, of all the tribes who now inhabit or formerly inhabited America. Nothing like it exists elsewhere. This collection alone is worth a journey to America. Dr. Morton has had the kindness to give me a copy of his great illustrated work representing all the types of his collection. Quite recently a generous citizen of Philadelphia has enriched this museum with the fine collection of birds belonging to the Duke of Rivoli. He bought it for 37,000 francs, and presented it to his native city.

The number of fossil remains comprised in these collections is very considerable; mastodons especially, and fossils of the cretaceous and jurassic deposits. . .Imagine that all this is at my full disposal for description and illustration, and you will understand my pleasure. The liberality of the American naturalists toward me is unparalleled.

I must not omit to mention Mr. Lea's collection of fresh-water shells,—a series of the magnificent Unios of the rivers and lakes of America, comprising four hundred species, represented by some thirty specimens of each. Mr. Lea has promised me specimens of all the species. Had I not been bound by an engagement at Washington, and could I have remained three or four days longer in order to label and pack them, I might have taken at once these valuable objects, which will be of great importance in verifying and rectifying the synonyms of European conchologists. After having seen the astonishing variations undergone by these shells in their growth, I am satisfied that all which European naturalists have written on this subject must be revised. Only with the help of a very full series of individuals can one fully understand these animals, and we have only single specimens in our collections. If I had time and means to have drawings made of all these forms, the collection of Mr. Lea would be at my command for the purpose, and the work would be a very useful one for science.

There are several other private and public collections at Philadelphia, which I have only seen cursorily; that of the Medical School, for instance, and that of the older Peale, who discovered the first mastodon found in the United States, now mounted in his museum. Beside these, there is the collection of Dr. Griffith, rich in skulls from the Gulf of Mexico; that of Mr. Ord, and others. During my stay in Philadelphia, there was also an exhibition of industrial products at the Franklin Institute, where I especially remarked the chemical department. There are no less than three professors of chemistry in Philadelphia,—Mr. Hare, Mr. Booth, and Mr. Frazer. The first is, I think, the best known in Europe.

How a nearer view changes the aspect of things! I thought myself tolerably familiar with all that is doing in science in the United States, but I was far from anticipating so much that is interesting and important. What is wanting to all these men is neither zeal nor knowledge. In both, they seem to compete with us, and in ardor and activity they even surpass most of our savans. What they need is leisure. I have never felt more forcibly what I owe to the king for enabling me to live for science alone, undisturbed by anxieties and distractions. Here, I do not lose a moment, and when I receive invitations outside the circle of men whom I care particularly to know, I decline, on the ground that I am not free to dispose for my pleasure of time which does not belong to me. For this no one can quarrel with me, and so far as I myself am concerned, it is much better.

I stopped at Baltimore only long enough to see the city. It was Sunday, and as I could make no visits, and was anxious to arrive in good time at Washington, I took advantage of the first train. The capital of the United States is laid out upon a gigantic scale, and, consequently, portions of the different quarters are often to be traced only by isolated houses here and there,—a condition which has caused it to be called the "City of Magnificent Distances." Some of the streets are very handsome, and the capitol itself is really imposing. Their profound veneration for the founder of their liberty and their republic is a noble trait of the American people. The evidences of this are to be seen everywhere. No less than two hundred towns, villages, and counties bear his name, rather to the inconvenience of the postal administration.

After having visited the capitol and the presidential mansion, and delivered my letters for the Prussian Minister, I went to the Museum of the National Institute. I was impatient to satisfy myself as to the scientific value of the results obtained in the field of my own studies by the voyage of Captain Wilkes around the world, —this voyage having been the object of equally exaggerated praise and criticism. I confess that I was agreeably surprised by the richness of the zoological and geological collections; I do not think any European expedition has done more or better; and in some departments, in that of the Crustacea, for example, the collection at Washington surpasses in beauty and number of specimens all that I have seen. It is especially to Dr. Pickering and Mr. Dana that these collections are due. As the expedition did not penetrate to the interior of the continents in tropical regions, the collections of birds and mammals, which fell to the charge of Mr. Peale, are less considerable. Mr. Gray tells me, however, that the botanical collections are very large. More precious, perhaps, than all the collections are the magnificent drawings of mollusks, zoophytes, fishes, and reptiles, painted from life by Mr. Drayton. All these plates, to the number of about six hundred, are to be engraved, and indeed are already, in part, executed. I can only compare them to those of the Astrolabe, although they are very superior in variety of position and naturalness of attitude to those of the French Expedition. This is particularly true of the mollusks and fishes. The zoophytes are to be published; they are admirable in detail. The hydrographic portion and the account of the voyage, edited by Captain Wilkes (unhappily he was absent and I did not see him), has been published for some time, and comprises an enormous mass of information, its chief feature being charts to the number of two hundred. It is amazing; the number of soundings extraordinarily large.* (* Agassiz subsequently took some part in working up the fish collections from this expedition, but the publication was stopped for want of means to carry it on.)

At Washington are also to be seen the headquarters of the Coast Survey, where the fine charts of the coasts and harbors now making under direction of Dr. Bache are executed. These charts are admirably finished. Dr. Bache, the superintendent, was in camp, so that I could not deliver my letters for him. I saw, however, Colonel Abert, the head of the topographic office, who gave me important information about the West for the very season when I am likely to be there. I am indebted to him also for a series of documents concerning the upper Missouri and Mississippi, California and Oregon, printed by order of the government, and for a collection of fresh-water shells from those regions. I should like to offer him, in return, such sheets of the Federal Map as have appeared. I beg Guyot to send them to me by the first occasion.

As I was due in Boston on an appointed day I was obliged to defer my visit to Richmond, Charleston, and other places in the South. I had, beside, gathered so much material that I had need of a few quiet weeks to consider and digest it all. Returning therefore to Philadelphia, I made there the acquaintance of Mr. Haldeman, author of a monograph on the fresh-water shells of the United States. I had made an appointment to meet him at Philadelphia, being unable to make a detour of fifty leagues in order to visit him at his own home, which is situated beyond the lines of rapid transit. He is a distinguished naturalist, equally well versed in several branches of our science. He has made me acquainted, also, with a young naturalist from the interior of Pennsylvania, Mr. Baird, professor at Dickinson College, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, who offered me duplicates from his collections of birds and other animals. In order to avail myself more promptly of this and like acquisitions, I wish that M. Coulon would send me at the close of the winter all that he can procure of the common European birds, of our small mammalia, and some chamois skins, adding also the fish that Charles put aside for me before his departure. It would be safest to send them to the care of Auguste Mayor.

At Philadelphia I separated from my traveling companion, Mr. Gray, who was obliged to return to his home. From Philadelphia, Mr. Haldeman and Mr. Lea accompanied me to Bristol, where Mr. Vanuxem possesses an important collection of fossils from ancient deposits, duplicates of which he promises me. Mr. Vanuxem is one of the official geologists of the State of New York, and author of one of a series of volumes upon the geology of the State, about which I shall presently have something to say. To gain time I took the night train from Bristol to New York, and arrived at Mayor's at midnight, having written him to expect me.

The next day I visited the market, and in five days I had filled a great barrel with different kinds of fish and fresh-water turtles, beside making several skeletons and various dissections of mollusks. Wishing to employ my time as usefully as possible, I postponed my visits to the savans of the city, and the delivery of my letters, till I was on the eve of departure, that I might avoid all invitations. I had especial pleasure in making the acquaintance of the two Le Contes, father and son, who own the finest collection of insects in the United States. I can easily make some thousand exchanges with them when I receive those that M. Coulon has put aside for me, with a view to exchange. . .Every morning Auguste Mayor went with me to the market before going to his office and helped me to carry my basket when it was too heavy. One day I brought back no less than twenty-four turtles, taken in one draught of the net. I made four skeletons, and dissected several others. Under such conditions the day ought to have thirty-six working hours.

Were I an artist, instead of describing my voyage from New York to Albany, I would draw you a panorama of the shores of the Hudson. I know nothing except the banks of the Rhine to compare with those of this magnificent river. The resemblance between them is striking; the sites, the nature of the rocks, the appearance of the towns and villages, the form of the Albany bridges, even the look of the inhabitants, of whom the greater number are of Dutch or German origin,—all are similar.

I stopped at West Point to make the acquaintance of Professor Bailey of the Military School there. I already knew him by reputation. He is the author of very detailed and interesting researches upon the microscopic animalcules of America. I had a pamphlet to deliver to him from Ehrenberg, who has received from him a great deal of material for his large work on fossil Infusoria. I spent three most delightful days with him, passed chiefly in examining his collections, from which he gave me many specimens. We also made several excursions in the neighborhood, in order to study the erratic phenomena and the traces of glaciers, which everywhere cover the surface of the country. Polished rocks, as distinct as possible; moraines continuous over large spaces; stratified drift, as on the borders of the glacier of Grindelwald; in short, all the usual accompaniments of the glaciers are there, and one may follow the "roches moutonnees" with the eye to a great distance.

Albany is the seat of government of the State of New York. It has a medical school, an agricultural society, a geological museum, an anatomical museum, and a museum of natural history. The government has just completed the publication of a work, unique of its kind, a natural history of the State in sixteen volumes, quarto, with plates; twenty-five hundred copies have been printed, only five hundred of which are for sale, the rest being distributed throughout the State. Four volumes are devoted to geology and mining alone, the others to zoology, botany, and agriculture. Yes, twenty-five hundred copies of a work in sixteen volumes, quarto, scattered throughout the State of New York alone! When I think that I began my studies in natural history by copying hundreds of pages from a Lamarck which some one had lent me, and that to-day there is a State in which the smallest farmer may have access to a costly work, worth a library to him in itself, I bless the efforts of those who devote themselves to public instruction. . .I have not neglected the opportunity offered by the North River (the Hudson) for the study of the fresh-water fishes of this country. I have filled a barrel with them. The species differ greatly from ours, with the exception of the perch, the eel, the pike, and the sucker, in which only a practiced eye could detect the difference; all the rest belong to genera unknown in Europe, or, at least, in Switzerland. . .

I was fortunate enough to procure also, in the few days of my stay, all the species taken in the lakes and rivers around Albany. Several others have been given me from Lake Superior. Since my return to Boston I have been collecting birds and comparing them with those of Europe. If M. Coulon could obtain for me a collection of European eggs, even the most common, I could exchange them for an admirable series of the native species here. I have also procured several interesting mammals; among others, two species of hares different from those I brought from Halifax, striped squirrels, etc.

I will tell you another time something of the collections of Boston and Cambridge, the only ones in the United States which can rival those of Philadelphia. To-day I have made my first attempt at lecturing. Of that, also, I will tell you more in my next letter, when I know how it has been liked. It is no small matter to satisfy an audience of three thousand people in a language with which you are but little familiar. . .

CHAPTER 14.

1846-1847: AGE 39-40.

Course of Lectures in Boston on Glaciers. Correspondence with Scientific Friends in Europe. House in East Boston. Household and Housekeeping. Illness. Letter to Elie de Beaumont. Letter to James D. Dana.

THE course at the Lowell Institute was immediately followed by one upon glaciers, the success of which was guaranteed by private subscription,—an unnecessary security, since the audience, attracted by the novelty and picturesqueness of the subject, as well as by the charm of presentation and fullness of illustration, was large and enthusiastic.

Agassiz was evidently encouraged himself by his success, for toward the close of his Lowell Lectures he writes as follows:—

TO CHANCELLOR FAVARGEZ.

BOSTON, December 31, 1846.

. . .Beside my lecture course, now within a few days of its conclusion, and the ever-increasing work which grows on my hands in proportion as I become familiar with the environs of Boston, where I shall still remain a few weeks longer, I have so much to do in keeping up my journals, notes, and observations that I have not found a moment to write you since the last steamer. . .Never did the future look brighter to me than now. If I could for a moment forget that I have a scientific mission to fulfill, to which I will never prove recreant, I could easily make more than enough by lectures which would be admirably paid and are urged upon me, to put me completely at my ease hereafter. But I will limit myself to what I need in order to repay those who have helped me through a difficult crisis, and that I can do without even turning aside from my researches. Beyond that all must go again to science,—there lies my true mission. I rejoice in what I have been able to do thus far, and I hope that at Berlin they will be satisfied with the results which I shall submit to competent judges on my return. If I only have time to finish what I have begun! You know my plans are not wont to be too closely restricted.

Why do you not write to me? Am I then wholly forgotten in your pleasant circle while my thoughts are every day constantly with my Neuchatel friends?. . .

Midnight, January 1st. A happy new year to you and to all members of the Tuesday Club. Bonjour et bon an. . .

Some portions of Agassiz's correspondence with his European friends and colleagues during the winter and summer of 1847 give a clew to the occupations and interests of his new life, and keep up the thread of the old one.

LOUIS AGASSIZ TO M. DECAISNE.

February, 1847.

. . .I write only to thank you for the pleasure your note gave me. When one is far away, as I am, from everything belonging to one's past life, the merest sign of friendly remembrance is a boon. Do not infer from this that America does not please me. On the contrary, I am delighted with my stay here, although I do not quite understand all that surrounds me; or I should perhaps rather say that many principles which, theoretically, we have been wont to think perfect in themselves, seem in their application to involve results quite contrary to our expectations. I am constantly asking myself which is better,—our old Europe, where the man of exceptional gifts can give himself absolutely to study, opening thus a wider horizon for the human mind, while at his side thousands barely vegetate in degradation or at least in destitution; or this new world, where the institutions tend to keep all on one level as part of the general mass,—but a mass, be it said, which has no noxious elements. Yes, the mass here is decidedly good. All the world lives well, is decently clad, learns something, is awake and interested. Instruction does not, as in some parts of Germany for instance, furnish a man with an intellectual tool and then deny him the free use of it. The strength of America lies in the prodigious number of individuals who think and work at the same time. It is a severe test of pretentious mediocrity, but I fear it may also efface originality . . .You are right in believing that one works, or at least that one CAN work, better in Paris than elsewhere, and I should esteem myself happy if I had my nest there, but who will make it for me? I am myself incapable of making efforts for anything but my work. . .

AGASSIZ TO MILNE EDWARDS.

May 31, 1847.

. . .After six weeks of an illness which has rendered me unfit for serious work I long to be transported into the circle of my Paris friends, to find myself again among the men whose devotion to science gives them a clear understanding of its tendency and influence. Therefore I take my way quite naturally to the Rue Cuvier and mount your stairs, confident that there I shall find this chosen society. Question upon question greets me regarding this new world, on the shore of which I have but just landed, and yet about which I have so much to say that I fear to tire my listeners.

Naturalist as I am, I cannot but put the people first,—the people who have opened this part of the American continent to European civilization. What a people! But to understand them you must live among them. Our education, the principles of our society, the motives of our actions, differ so greatly from what I see here, that I should try in vain to give you an idea of this great nation, passing from childhood to maturity with the faults of spoiled children, and yet with the nobility of character and the enthusiasm of youth. Their look is wholly turned toward the future; their social life is not yet irrevocably bound to exacting antecedents, and thus nothing holds them back, unless, perhaps, a consideration for the opinion in which they may be held in Europe. This deference toward England (unhappily, to them, Europe means almost exclusively England) is a curious fact in the life of the American people. They know us but little, even after having made a tour in France, or Italy, or Germany. From England they receive their literature, and the scientific work of central Europe reaches them through English channels. . .Notwithstanding this kind of dependence upon England, in which American savans have voluntarily placed themselves, I have formed a high opinion of their acquirements, since I have learned to know them better, and I think we should render a real service to them and to science, by freeing them from this tutelage, raising them in their own eyes, and drawing them also a little more toward ourselves. Do not think that these remarks are prompted by the least antagonism toward English savans, whom no one more than myself has reason to regard with affection and esteem. But since these men are so worthy to soar on their own wings, why not help them to take flight? They need only confidence, and some special recognition from Europe would tend to give them this. . .

Among the zoologists of this country I would place Mr. Dana at the head. He is still very young, fertile in ideas, rich in facts, equally able as geologist and mineralogist. When his work on corals is completed, you can better judge of him. One of these days you will make him a correspondent of the Institute, unless he kills himself with work too early, or is led away by his tendency to generalization. Then there is Gould, author of the malacologic fauna of Massachusetts, and who is now working up the mollusks of the Wilkes Expedition. De Kay and Lea, whose works have long been known, are rather specialists, I should say. I do not yet know Holbrook personally. Pickering, of the Wilkes Expedition, is a well of science, perhaps the most erudite naturalist here. Haldeman knows the fresh-water gasteropods of this country admirably well, and has published a work upon them. Le Conte is a critical entomologist who seems to me thoroughly familiar with what is doing in Europe. In connection with Haldeman he is working up the articulates of the Wilkes Expedition. Wyman, recently made professor at Cambridge, is an excellent comparative anatomist, and the author of several papers on the organization of fishes. . .The botanists are less numerous, but Asa Gray and Dr. Torrey are known wherever the study of botany is pursued. Gray, with his indefatigable zeal, will gain upon his competitors. . .The geologists and mineralogists form the most numerous class among the savans of the country. The fact that every state has its corps of official geologists has tended to develop study in this direction to the detriment of other branches, and will later, I fear, tend to the detriment of science itself; for the utilitarian tendency thus impressed on the work of American geologists will retard their progress. With us, on the contrary, researches of this kind constantly tend to assume a more and more scientific character. Still, the body of American geologists forms, as a whole, a most respectable contingent. The names of Charles T. Jackson, James Hall, Hitchcock, Henry and William Rogers (two brothers), have long been familiar to European science. After the geologists, I would mention Dr. Morton, of Philadelphia, well known as the author of several papers upon fossils, and still better by his great work upon the indigenous races of America. He is a man of science in the best sense; admirable both as regards his knowledge and his activity. He is the pillar of the Philadelphia Academy.

The chemists and physicists, again, form another utilitarian class of men in this country. As with many of them purely scientific work is not their sole object, it is difficult for an outsider to distinguish between the clever manipulators and those who have higher aims. . .

The mathematicians have also their culte, dating back to Bowditch, the translator of the "Mecanique celeste," and the author of a work on practical navigation. He died in Boston, where they are now erecting a magnificent monument to his memory. Mr. Peirce, professor at Cambridge, is considered here the equal of our great mathematicians. It is not for me, who cannot do a sum in addition, to pretend to a judgment in the matter.* (* Though Agassiz was no mathematician, and Peirce no naturalist, they soon found that their intellectual aims were the same, and they became very close friends.)

You are familiar, no doubt, with the works of Captain Wilkes and the report of his journey around the world. His charts are much praised. The charts of the coasts and harbors of the United States, made under the direction of Dr. Bache and published at government expense, are admirable. The reports of Captain Fremont concerning his travels are also most interesting and instructive; to botanists especially so, on account of the scientific notes accompanying them.

I will not speak at length of my own work,—my letter is already too long. During the winter I have been chiefly occupied in making collections of fishes and birds, and also of the various woods. The forests here differ greatly from ours in the same latitude. I have even observed that they resemble astonishingly the forests of the Molasse epoch, and the analogy is heightened by that between the animals of this country and those of the eastern coasts of Asia as compared with those of the Molasse, such as the chelydras, andreas, etc. I will send a report upon this to M. Brongniart as soon as I have the time to prepare it. On the erratic phenomena, also, I have made numerous observations, which I am anxious to send to M. de Beaumont. These phenomena, so difficult of explanation with us, become still more complicated here, both on account of their contact with the sea and of the vast stretches of flat country over which they extend.

For the last few days I have been especially occupied with the development of the medusae. In studying the actiniae I have made a striking discovery, and I should be glad if you would communicate it to the Academy in advance of the illustrated paper on the same subject, which I hope soon to send you. Notwithstanding their star-like appearance, the star-fishes have, like the sea-urchins, indications by no means doubtful, of a symmetrical disposition of their organs in pairs, and an anterior and posterior extremity easily recognized by the special form of their oral opening. I have now satisfied myself that the madrepores have something analogous to this in the arrangement of their partitions, so that I am tempted to believe that this tendency to a symmetrical arrangement of parts in pairs, is a general character of polyps, disguised by their radiating form. Among the medusae something similar exists in the disposition of the marginal appendages and the ocelli. I attach the more importance to these observations, because they may lead to a clearer perception than we have yet reached of the natural relations between the radiates and the other great types of the animal kingdom.

This summer I hope to explore the lower lakes of Canada, and also the regions lying to the eastward as far as Nova Scotia; in the autumn I shall resume my excursions on the coast and in the Alleghenies, and shall pass a part of the winter in the Carolinas. I will soon write to Monsieur Brongniart concerning my plans for next year. If the Museum were desirous to aid me in my undertakings, I should like to make a journey of exploration next summer in a zone thus far completely neglected by naturalists, the region, namely, of the small lakes to the west of Lake Superior, where the Mississippi takes its rise, and also of that lying between this great basin of fresh water and the southern arm of Hudson Bay. I would employ the autumn in exploring the great valley of the Mississippi, and would pass the winter on the borders of the Gulf of Mexico.

To carry out such projects, however, I have need of larger resources than I can create by my own efforts, and I shall soon be at the end of the subsidy granted me by the King of Prussia. I shall, however, subordinate all these projects to the possibilities of which you kindly tell me. Notwithstanding the interest offered by the exploration of a country so rich as this, notwithstanding the gratifying welcome I have received here, I feel, after all, that nowhere can one work better than in our old Europe, and the friendship you have shown me is a more than sufficient motive, impelling me to return as soon as possible to Paris. Remember me to our common friends. I have made some sufficiently interesting collections which I shall forward to the Museum; they will show you that I have done my best to fulfill my promises, forgetting no one. . .

In the summer of 1847 Agassiz established himself in a small house at East Boston, sufficiently near the sea to be a convenient station for marine collections. Here certain members of his old working corps assembled about him, and it soon became, like every place he had ever inhabited, a hive of industry. Chief among his companions were Count Francois de Pourtales, who had accompanied him to this country; Mr. E. Desor, who soon followed him to America; and Mr. Jacques Burkhardt, who had preceded them all, and was now draughtsman in chief to the whole party. To his labors were soon added those of Mr. A. Sonrel, the able lithographic artist, who illustrated the most important works subsequently published by Agassiz. To an exquisite skill in his art he added a quick, intelligent perception of structural features from the naturalist's point of view, which made his work doubly valuable. Besides those above-mentioned, there were several assistants who shared the scientific work in one department or another.

It must be confessed that this rather original establishment had the aspect of a laboratory rather than a home, domestic comfort being subordinate to scientific convenience. Every room served in some sort the purposes of an aquarium or a studio, while garret and cellar were devoted to collections. The rules of the household were sufficiently elastic to suit the most erratic student. A sliding scale for meals allowed the greatest freedom for excursions along the neighboring shores and beaches, and punctuality in work was the only punctuality demanded.

Agassiz himself was necessarily often absent, for the maintenance of the little colonydepended in great degree upon his exertions. During the winter of 1847, while continuing his lectures in Boston and its vicinity, he lectured in other places also. It is difficult to track his course at this time; but during the winters of 1847 and 1848 he lectured in all the large eastern cities, New York, Albany, Philadelphia, and Charleston, S.C. Everywhere he drew large crowds, and in those days his courses of lectures were rarely allowed to close without some public expression of gratitude and appreciation from the listeners. Among his papers are preserved several sets of resolutions from medical and scientific societies, from classes of students, and from miscellaneous audiences, attesting the enthusiasm awakened by his instruction. What he earned in this way enabled him to carry on his work and support his assistants. Still, the strain upon his strength, combined with all that he was doing beside in purely scientific work, was severe, and before the twelvemonth was out he was seriously ill. At this time Dr. B.E. Cotting, a physician whose position as curator of the Lowell Institute had brought him into contact with Agassiz, took him home to his house in the country, where he tended him through some weeks of tedious illness, hastening his convalescence by excursions in all the neighboring country, from which they returned laden with specimens,—plants, birds, etc. In this hospitable home he passed his fortieth birthday, the first in this country. His host found him standing thoughtful and abstracted by the window. "Why so sad?" he asked. "That I am so old, and have done so little," was the answer.

After a few weeks he was able to return to his work, and the next letter gives some idea of his observations, especially upon the traces of glacial action in the immediate vicinity of Boston and upon the shores of Massachusetts Bay. Indeed, he never lost sight of these features, which had caught his attention the moment he landed on the continent. In one of his later lectures he gives a striking account of this first impression.

"In the autumn of 1846," he says, "six years after my visit to Great Britain in search of glaciers, I sailed for America. When the steamer stopped at Halifax, eager to set foot on the new continent so full of promise for me, I sprang on shore and started at a brisk pace for the heights above the landing. On the first undisturbed ground, after leaving the town, I was met by the familiar signs, the polished surfaces, the furrows and scratches, the LINE ENGRAVING, so well known in the Old World; and I became convinced of what I had already anticipated as the logical sequence of my previous investigations, that here also this great agent had been at work." The incident seems a very natural introduction to the following letter, written a few months later:—

TO ELIE DE BEAUMONT.

BOSTON, August 31, 1847.

. . .I have waited to write until I should have some facts sufficiently important to claim your attention. In truth, the study of the marine animals, which I am, for the first time, able to observe in their natural conditions of existence, has engrossed me almost exclusively since I came to the United States, and only incidentally, as it were, I have turned my attention to paleontology and geology. I must, however, except the glacial phenomena, a problem, the solution of which always interests me deeply. This great question, far from presenting itself more simply here, is complicated by peculiarities never brought to my notice in Europe. Happily for me, Mr. Desor, who had been in Scandinavia before joining me here, called my attention at once to certain points of resemblance between the phenomena there and those which I had seen in the neighborhood of Boston. Since then, we have made several excursions together, have visited Niagara, and, in short, have tried to collect all the special facts of glacial phenomena in America. . .You are, no doubt, aware that the whole rocky surface of the ground here is polished. I do not think that anywhere in the world there exist polished and rounded rocks in better preservation or on a larger scale. Here, as elsewhere, erratic debris are scattered over these surfaces, scratched pebbles impacted in mud, forming unstratified masses mixed with and covered by large erratic boulders, more or less furrowed or scratched, the upper ones being usually angular and without marks. The absence of moraines, properly so-called, in a country so little broken, is not surprising; I have, however, seen very distinct ones in some valleys of the White Mountains and in Vermont. Up to this time there had been nothing very new in the aspect of the phenomena as a whole; but on examining attentively the internal arrangement of all these materials, especially in the neighborhood of the sea, one soon becomes convinced that the ocean has partially covered and more or less remodeled them. In certain places there are patches of stratified sand interposed between masses of glacial drift-deposit; elsewhere, banks of sand and pebbles crown the irregularities of the glacial deposit, or fill in its depressions; in other localities the glacial pebbles may be washed and completely cleared of mud, retaining, however, their markings; or again, these markings may have disappeared, and the material is arranged in lines or ramparts, as it were, of diverse conformation, in which Mr. Desor recognized all the modifications of the "oesars" of Scandinavia. The disposition of the oesars, as seen here, is evidently due entirely to the action of the waves, and their frequency along the coast is a proof of this. In a late excursion with Captain Davis on board a government vessel I learned to understand the mode of formation of the submarine dikes bordering the coast at various distances, which would be oesars were they elevated; with the aid of the dredge I satisfied myself of their identity. With these facts before me I cannot doubt that the oesars of the United States consist essentially of glacial material remodeled by the sea; while farther inland, though here and there reaching the sea-coast, we have unchanged glacial drift deposit. At some points the alteration is so slight as to denote only a momentary rise of the sea. Under these circumstances one would naturally look for fossils in the drift, and M. Desor, in company with M. de Pourtales, was the first to find them, at Brooklyn, in Long Island, which lies to the south of New York. They were imbedded in a glacial clay deposit, having all the ordinary character of such deposits, with only slight traces of stratified sand. It is true that the greater number of these fossils (all belonging to species now living on the coast) were broken into angular fragments, not excepting even the thick tests of the Venus mercenaria. . .

The suburb of Boston where I am living (East Boston) is built on an island, one kilometer and a half long, extending from north to southeast, and varying in width at different points from two to six or seven hundred metres. Its height above the sea-level is about sixty feet. This little island is composed entirely of glacial muddy deposit, containing scratched pebbles mixed with larger boulders or blocks, and covered also with a considerable number of boulders of divers forms and dimensions. At East Boston you cannot see what underlies this deposit; but no doubt it rests upon a rounded mass of granite, polished and grooved like several others in Boston harbor. . .

In our journey to Niagara, Mr. Desor and I assured ourselves that the river deposits, in which, among other things, the mastodon is found with the fresh-water shells of Goat Island, are posterior to the drift. It is a fact worth consideration that the mastodons found in Europe are buried in true tertiary formations, while the great mastodon of the United States is certainly posterior to the drift. . .In another letter I will tell you something of my observations upon the geographical distribution of marine animals at different depths and on different bottoms, and also upon the relations between this distribution and that of the fossils in the tertiary deposits. . .* (* I have left out a portion of this letter which appeared in the first edition of the book, because I learned that the facts there given concerning the deposit of Zostera marina were not substantiated, and that Agassiz consequently did not forward the letter in its first form. The remainder of this chapter appears in this edition for the first time.—E.C.A.)

Although so deeply interested by the geological features of the country, Agassiz was nevertheless drawn even more strongly to the study of the marine animals for which his position on the sea-coast gave him such opportunities as he had never before had. The next letter shows how fully his time was occupied, and how fascinating this new field of observation was to him. The English is still a little foreign. He was not yet quite at home in the language which he afterward wrote and spoke with such fluency.

TO JAMES D. DANA.

EAST BOSTON, September, 1847.

. . .What have you thought of me all this time, not having written a single line neither to you nor to Professor Silliman after the kind reception I have met with by your whole family? Pray excuse me and consider, if you please, the difficulty under which I labor, having every day to look after hundreds of new things which always carry me beyond usual hours of working, when I am then so much tired that I can think of nothing. Nevertheless, it is a delightful life to be allowed to examine in a fresh state so many things of which I had but an imperfect knowledge from books. The Boston market supplies me with more than I can examine.

Since I had the pleasure of seeing you I have been very successful in collecting specimens, especially in New York and Albany. In Washington I have been delighted to see the collections of the Exploring Expedition. They entitle you to the highest thanks from all scientific naturalists, and I hope it will be also felt in the same manner by your countrymen at large. . .I long for the opportunity of studying your fossil shells. As soon as I have gone over my Lowell lectures I hope to be able to move. I shall only pack up what I have already collected; but I cannot yet tell you precisely the time.

I began studying your "Zoophytes," but it is so rich a book that I proceed slowly. For years I have not learned so much from a book as from yours. As I soon saw I would not be able to go through in a short time, I sent a short preliminary report to one of our most widely diffused papers, "Preussische Staats Zeitung," giving only the general impression of your work, and I shall send to Erichson a fuller scientific report after I have done with the whole volume.

As I happen to have a lithograph of the original specimen of the Homo deluvii testis of Scheuchzer, I will forward it to Professor Silliman with this letter. I expect you will find it the counterpart of the specimen in your museum; or very nearly in the same state of preservation.

Having just lately received my books, I also inclose a pamphlet from Ehrenberg, which he desired me to leave with you, and also the books Professor Silliman has had the kindness to lend me. . . I have made many observations which I wish to publish, but I can find no time to write them for you now. I must wait till the weather is so dull as to bring nothing into the hands of gunners and fishermen. . .

So closed his first year in America. The second unfolded events both in the home he had left and in the one to which he had unconsciously come, which were to shape his future career, and exert the most powerful influence upon his whole life.

CHAPTER 15.

1847-1850: AGE 40-43.

Excursions on Coast Survey Steamer. Relations with Dr. Bache, the Superintendent of the Coast Survey. Political Disturbances in Switzerland. Change of Relations with Prussia. Scientific School established in Cambridge. Chair of Natural History offered to Agassiz. Acceptance. Removal to Cambridge. Literary and Scientific Associations there and in Boston. Household in Cambridge. Beginning of Museum. Journey to Lake Superior. "Report, with Narration." "Principles of Zoology," by Agassiz and Gould. Letters from European Friends respecting these Publications. Letter from Hugh Miller. Second Marriage. Arrival of his Children in America.

One of Agassiz's great pleasures in the summer of 1847 consisted in excursions on board the Coast Survey steamer Bibb, then employed in the survey of the harbor and bay of Boston, under command of Captain (afterward Admiral) Charles Henry Davis. Under no more kindly auspices could Agassiz's relations with this department of government work have been begun. "My cabin," writes Captain Davis, after their first trip together, "seems lonely without you."

Hitherto the sea-shore had been a closed book to the Swiss naturalist, and now it opened to him a field of research almost as stimulating as his own glaciers. Born and bred among the mountains, he knew marine animals only as they can be known in dried and alcoholic specimens, or in a fossil state. From the Bibb he writes to a friend on shore: "I learn more here in a day than in months from books or dried specimens. Captain Davis is kindness itself. Everything I can wish for is at my disposal so far as it is possible."

Dr. Bache was at this time Superintendent of the Coast Survey, and he saw at once how the work of the naturalist might ally itself with the professional work of the Survey to the greater usefulness of both. From the beginning to the end of his American life, therefore, the hospitalities of the United States Coast Survey were open to Agassiz. As a guest on board her vessels he studied the reefs of Florida and the Bahama Banks, as well as the formations of our New England shores. From the deck of the Bibb, in connection with Count de Pourtales, his first dredging experiments were undertaken; and his last long voyage around the continent, from Boston to San Francisco, was made on board the Hassler, a Coast Survey vessel fitted out for the Pacific shore. Here was another determining motive for his stay in this country. Under no other government, perhaps, could he have had opportunities so invaluable to a naturalist.

But events were now passing in Europe which made his former position there, as well as that of many of his old friends, wholly unstable. In February, 1848, the proclamation of the French republic broke upon Europe like a clap of thunder from a clear sky. The news created great disturbances in Switzerland, and especially in the canton of Neuchatel, where a military force was immediately organized by the republican party in opposition to the conservatives, who would fain have continued loyal to the Prussian king. For the moment all was chaos, and the prospects of institutions of learning were seriously endangered. The republican party carried the day; the canton of Neuchatel ceased to be a dependence of the Prussian monarchy, and became merged in the general confederation of Switzerland.

At about the same time that Agassiz, in consequence of this change of conditions, was honorably discharged from the service of the Prussian king, a scientific school was organized at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in direct connection with Harvard University. This school, known as the Lawrence Scientific School, owed its existence to the generosity of Abbott Lawrence, formerly United States Minister at the Court of St. James. He immediately offered the chair of Natural History (Zoology and Geology) to Agassiz, with a salary of fifteen hundred dollars, guaranteed by Mr. Lawrence himself, until such time as the fees of the students should be worth three thousand dollars to their professor. This time never came. Agassiz's lectures, with the exception of the more technical ones addressed to small classes, were always fully attended, but special students were naturally very few in a department of pure science, and their fees never raised the salary of the professor perceptibly. This was, however, counterbalanced in some degree by the clause in his contract which allowed him entire freedom for lectures elsewhere, so that he could supplement his restricted income from other sources.

In accordance with this new position Agassiz now removed his bachelor household to Cambridge, where he opened his first course in April, 1848. He could hardly have come to Harvard at a more auspicious moment, so far as his social and personal relations were concerned. The college was then on a smaller scale than now, but upon its list of professors were names which would have given distinction to any university. In letters, there were Longfellow and Lowell, and Felton, the genial Greek scholar, of whom Longfellow himself wrote, "In Attica thy birthplace should have been." In science, there were Peirce, the mathematician, and Dr. Asa Gray, then just installed at the Botanical Garden, and Jeffries Wyman, the comparative anatomist, appointed at about the same time with Agassiz himself. To these we might almost add, as influencing the scientific character of Harvard, Dr. Bache, the Superintendent of the Coast Survey, and Charles Henry Davis, the head of the Nautical Almanac, since the kindly presence of the former was constantly invoked as friend and counselor in the scientific departments, while the latter had his residence in Cambridge, and was as intimately associated with the interests of Harvard as if he had been officially connected with the university.

A more agreeable set of men, or one more united by personal relations and intellectual aims, it would have been difficult to find. In connection with these names, those of Prescott, Ticknor, Motley, and Holmes also arise most naturally, for the literary men and scholars of Cambridge and Boston were closely united; and if Emerson, in his country home at Concord, was a little more withdrawn, his influence was powerful in the intellectual life of the whole community, and acquaintance readily grew to friendship between him and Agassiz. Such was the pleasant and cultivated circle into which Agassiz was welcomed in the two cities, which became almost equally his home, and where the friendships he made gradually transformed exile into household life and ties.

In Cambridge he soon took his share in giving as well as receiving hospitalities, and his Saturday evenings were not the less attractive because of the foreign character and somewhat unwonted combination of the household. Over its domestic comforts now presided an old Swiss clergyman, Monsieur Christinat. He had been attached to Agassiz from childhood, had taken the deepest interest in his whole career, and, as we have seen, had assisted him to complete his earlier studies. Now, under the disturbed condition of things at home, he had thrown in his lot with him in America. "If your old friend," he writes, "can live with his son Louis, it will be the height of his happiness." To Agassiz his presence in the house was a benediction. He looked after the expenses, and acted as commissary in chief to the colony. Obliged, as Agassiz was, frequently to be absent on lecturing tours, he could, with perfect security, intrust the charge of everything connected with the household to his old friend, from whom he was always sure of an affectionate welcome on his return. In short, so far as an old man could, "papa Christinat," as he was universally called in this miscellaneous family, strove to make good to him the absence of wife and children.

The make-up of the settlement was somewhat anomalous. The house, though not large, was sufficiently roomy, and soon after Agassiz was established there he had the pleasure of receiving under his roof certain friends and former colleagues, driven from their moorings in Europe by the same disturbances which had prevented him from returning there. The arrival among them of Mr. Guyot, with whom his personal and scientific intimacy was of such long standing, was a great happiness. It was especially a blessing at this time, for troubles at home weighed upon Agassiz and depressed him. His wife, always delicate in health, had died, and although his children were most affectionately provided for in her family and his own, they were separated from each other, as well as from him; nor did he think it wise to bring them while so young, to America. The presence, therefore, of one who was almost like a brother in sympathy and companionship, was now more than welcome. His original staff of co-workers and assistants still continued with him, and there were frequent guests besides, chiefly foreigners, who, on arriving in a new country, found their first anchorage and point of departure in this little European settlement.