Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence

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isolated phenomena. From the beginning his success as an instructor was undoubted. He had, indeed, now entered upon the occupation which was to be from youth to old age the delight of his life. Teaching was a passion with him, and his power over his pupils might be measured by his own enthusiasm. He was intellectually, as well as socially, a democrat, in the best sense. He delighted to scatter broadcast the highest results of thought and research, and to adapt them even to the youngest and most uninformed minds. In his later American travels he would talk of glacial phenomena to the driver of a country stage-coach among the m

scientific collections, which had already attained, under the care of M. Louis Coulon, considerable value, presently assumed the character and proportions of a well-ordered museum. In M. Coulon Agassiz found a generous friend and a scientific colleague who sympathized with h

open air. One can easily imagine what joy it must have been for a party of little playmates, boys and girls, to be taken out for long walks in the country over the hills about Neuchatel, and especially to Chaumont, the mountain which rises behind it, and thus to have their lessons, for which the facts and scenes about them furnished subject and illustration, combined with pleasant rambles. From some high ground affording a wide panoramic view Agassiz would explain to them the formation of lakes, islands, rivers, spr

duced to dates, bananas, cocoa-nuts, and other fruits, not easily to be obtained in those days in a small inland town. They, of course, concluded the lesson by eating the specimens, a practical illustration which they greatly enjoyed. A very large wooden globe, on the surface of which the various features of the earth as they came up for discussion could be shown, served to make them more clear and vivid. The children took their own share in the instruction, and were th

er he taught them botany and geology, availing himself of the fine days for excursions and practical instruction in the field. Professor Louis Favre, speaking of these excursions, which led them sometimes into the gorges of the Seyon,

n brought him invitations from elsewhere. On

EDEMANN TO L

G, Decemb

conformably to the proposition of the medical faculty, would give you the appointment on the same terms. By your knowledge you are prepared for the work of an able academical teacher. My advice is, therefore, that you should not bind yourself to any lyceum or gymnasium, as a permanent position; such a place would not suit a cultivated scientific man, nor does it offer a field for an accomplished scholar. Consider carefully, therefore, a question which concerns the efficiency of your life, and give me the result of your deliberation as soon as possible. Should it be favorable t

spect to the call from Heidelberg, while it is also full of

Z TO H

ber,

good-will on my behalf and your friendly recommendation. You have my warmest thanks for the trouble you have taken about me, and for your continued sympathy. Let me show you by

no time to answer me, let me know your opinion by your silence. I will tell you the reasons which would induce me to remain for the present in Neuchatel, and I think you will approve them. First, as my lectures do not claim a great part of my time I shall have the more to bestow on other work; add to this the position of Neuchatel, so favorable for observations such as I propose making on the history of development in several classes of animals; then the hope of freeing myself from the burden of my collections; and next, the quiet of my life here with reference to my somewhat overstrained health. Beside my wish to remain, these favorable circumstances furnish a powerful motive,

ty of Natural History,* (* Societe des Sciences Naturelles de Neuchatel.) and I hope, should you make your promised vis

Will you have the kindness, when occasion offers, to say a word to M. Ancillon about it?. . .Not only would this collection be of the greatest value to the museum here, but its

nder my own eye and direction. This I can well do since my uncle, Dr. Mayor in Lausanne, gives me fifty louis toward it, the amount of one year's pay to Weber, my former lithographer in Muni

n found beyond such as is implie

TO M. COU

January

character. They write me from Heidelberg that they intend the place of M. Leuckart in zoology for my young friend. The choice is proposed by M. Tiedemann, and certainly nothing could be more honorable to M. Agassiz. N

M. Agassiz is a scientific letter of credit which we shall try to honor. The acquisition of a superior man and a superior collection at the same time would be a double conquest for the principality of Neuchatel. I have requested a report from the Council of State on the

offered a professorship at the University of Heidelberg, but that, although his answer has not actually gone, he has resolved to decline it; adding

darkened room, he practiced the study of fossils by touch alone, using even the tip of the tongue to feel out the impression, when the fingers were not sufficiently sensitive. He said he was sure at the time that he could bring himself in this way to such delicacy of touch that the loss of sight would not oblige hi

ide (perhaps on account of the trouble in his eyes), and only completed in the following May. Although imperfect, it e

Z TO H

, January

the others. Upon careful examination I have found, to my astonishment, that all necessary means for the publication of such a work are to be had here: two good lithographers and two printing establishments, both of which have excellent type. I have sent for Weber to engrave the plates, or draw them on stone; he will be here at the end of the month. Then I shall begin at once, and hope in May to send out the first number. The great difficulty remains now in the distribution of the numbers, and in finding a sufficient sale so that they may follow each other with regularity. I think it better to begin

istribution of the copies and the collecting of the money could you, perhaps, recommend me to some house in Berlin or Leipzig, who would take the work for

I am satisfied that sooner or later my collection will be purchased, though nothing has been said abo

to the present creation. Hitherto, I have only been able to examine and describe the skeleton and external parts. If you could obtain a specimen of both for me you would do me the greatest service. If necessary, I will engag

DT TO

CI, July

t for you. I have delayed writing, not because I am one of the most persecuted men in Europe (the persecution goes on crescendo; there is not a scholar in Prussia or Germany having anything to ask of the King, or of M. d'Altenstein, who does not t

* (* The few words which called forth this protest from Humboldt were as follows. After naming all those from whom he had received help in specimens or otherwise, Agassiz concludes:-"Finally, I owe to M. de Humboldt not only importa

the least apt of all men in collecting subscriptions, seeing no one but the court, and forced to be out of town three or four days in the week. On account of this same inaptitude, I beg you to send me, through the pu

that you will navigate successfully among these literary corsairs! I have had a short eulogium of your work inserted in the Berliner Staats-Zeitung. You see that I do not neglect your interests, and that, for love of you, I even turn journalist. You have omitted to s

for the Gymnasium in Neuchatel. Did I know how to write," etc. The rest of your letter was very good; put only "so much grace as to answer" instead of "so much kindness." You should end with the words, "I remain till death, in deepest reverence, the most humble and faithful servant of your Royal Majesty." The whole on small folio, sealed, addressed outside, "To the King's Majesty, Berlin." Send the letter, not through me, but officially, through M. de Pfuel.* (* At the head there must be "Allerdurchlauchtigster, grossmachtigster Konig,-allergnadigster Konig und Herr." Then you begin, "Euer koniglichen Majestat,

we will make to the King as soon as the first number has appeared. Had I obtained the King's name for you to-day (which would have been difficult, since the King detests subscriptions), we should have spoiled the sequence. It seems to me that a letter of acknowledgment from you to M. Ancillon would be very suitable also. Do not think it is too late. One a

ey are OURS. I have not neglected the subscriptions in Russia, but I have, as yet, no answer. At a venture, I have placed the name of M. von Buch on my list. He is absent;

similar than the vital action of the metamorphosis of a plant in order to form the calyx or the flower, and the successive formation of beds of conglomerate. There is order, it is true, in the superposed beds, sometimes an alternation of the same substance, an interior cause,-sometimes even a successive development, starting from a central heat; but can the term "life" be applied to this kind of movement? Limestone does not generate sandstone. I do not know that there exists what physiologists call a vital force, different from, or opposed to, the physical forces which we recognize in all matter; I think the vit

much knowledge, you are only entering upon life, while I am preparing to depart; leaving this world far different from what I hoped it wo

ies of Ehrenberg (microscopical) on the difference of structure between the brain and the nerves

ited means enforced. Her rare artistic talent, hitherto devoted to her brother's botanical pursuits, now found a new field. Trained to accuracy in drawing objects of Natural History, she had an artist's eye for form and color. Some of the best drawings in the Fossil Fishes and

igators of note in his own country, from those of France, Italy, and Germany, from England, and even from America, the distant El Dorado of naturalists in those days, came offers of cooperation, accom

m the neighborhood of Bex, his home in the valley of the Rhone, the classic land of glacial work; but he writes of Agassiz's special subjects, inviting him to come and see such fossils as were to be found in hi

ish naturalists, from Buckland, Lyell, Murchison, and others, to vis

SOR BUCKLAN

December

propose to you as a means of seeing all the collections of England, and gaining at the same time additional subscriptions for your work, is, that you should come to England and attend the British Association for the Advancement of Science in September next. There you will meet all the naturalists of England, and I do not doubt that among them you will find a good many subscribers. You will likewise see a new mine of fossil fishes in the clayey schist of the coal formation at Newhaven, on the banks of the Forth, near Edinburgh. You can also make arrangements to visit the museums of York, Whitby, Scarborough, and Leeds, as well as the museum of Sir Philip Egerton, on your way to and from Edinburgh. You ma

PROFESSOR

etters of recommendation to facilitate my examination of them in detail. Not that I question for a moment the liberality of the English naturalists. All the continental savants who have visited your museums have praised the kindness shown in intrusting t

gratifying and substantial mark of the inte

ELL TO LOU

E, LONDON, Fe

the interest, or about seven hundred and fifty francs every year, for the encouragement of the science of geology. Your work on fishes has been considered by the Council and the officers of the Geological Society worthy of this prize, Dr. Wollaston having said that it could be given for

hall have it soon. In the mean time I am desired to tell you that the Society declines to receive your magni

IZ TO

L, March

confess to you that at no time could your gift have given me greater pleasure. Generous friends have helped me to bring out the first number of my "Fossil Fishes;" the plates of the second are finished, but I was greatly embarrassed to know how to print a sufficient number of copies before the returns from the first should be paid in. The text is ready also, so that now, in a fortnight, I can begin

be found in the fossil state. I have begun with the scales; later, I treat of the bones and the teeth. Then comes the continuation of the description of the Ganoids and the Scomberoids, and an additional sheet contains a sketch of my ichthyological classification. The pl

in particular, and to the members in general, would be fitting.

ve read with great pleasure your first number; it promises us a work as important for science as it is remarkable in execution. Do not let yourself be discouraged by obst

1833-1843). The inscription tells, in few words, the author's reverence for Humboldt and his personal gratitude to him. "These pag

New Classification of Fishes expressing their Relations to the Series of Formations; the Explanation of the Laws of their Succession and Development during all the Changes of the Terrestrial Globe, accompani

binations of reptilian and bird-like characters in the earlier geological fishes, which led the author to call them prophetic types; and third, his discovery of an analogy between the embryological phases of the higher present fishes and the gradual introduction of the whole type on

reptilian and fishlike features, characterizing the earlier geological epochs, while in the later the simple bony fishes, the Cycloids and Ctenoids, take the ascendancy. Here, for the first time, Agassiz presents his "synthetic or prophetic types," namely, early types embracing, as it were, in one large outline, features afterward individualized in special groups, and never again reunited. No less striking than these general views of structural relations are the clearness and simplicity with

its generalizations may well have a certain attraction for every thoughtful mind. It treats of the relations, anatomical, zoological, and geological, between

nt to the attentive observer that one single idea has presided over the development of the whole class, and that all the deviations lead back to a primary plan, so

cay, he presents two modes of studying the type as a whole; either in its comparative anatomy, including in the comparison the whole history of the type, fossil and living, or in its comparative embryology. "The results," he adds, "of these two methods of stud

high importance for zoological and paleontological considerations, since it shows that the same thought, the same plan, which presides to-day over the formation of the embryo, is also manifested in the successive development of the numerous creation which have formerly peopled the earth." Agassiz says himself in his Preface: "I have succeeded in expressing the laws of succession and of the organic development of fishes during all geological epochs; and science may henceforth, in seeing the changes of this class from formation to formation, follow the progress of organization in one great division of the animal kingdom, through a complete series of the ages of the earth." This is not inconsistent with his position as the leading opponent of the development or Darwinian theories. To him, development meant development of plan as expressed in structure, not the change of one structure into another. To his apprehension the change was b

rom the Placoids and Ganoids. As well might one affirm that the Mammalia, and man with them, have descended directly from fishes. All these species have a fixed epoch of appearance and disappearance; their existence is even limited to an appointed time. And yet they present, as a whole, numerous affinities more or less close, a definite coordination in a given system of organization which has intimate rela

; I have, therefore, made frequent journeys in Germany, in France, and in England, in order to examine, describe, and illustrate the objects of my researches. But notwithstanding the cordiality with which even the most precious specimens have been placed at my disposition, a serious inconvenience has resulted from this mode of working, namely, that I have rarely been able to compare directly the various specimens of the same species from different collections, and that I have often been obliged to make my identification from memo

t should not only find all classes of the animal kingdom represented within its walls, but preserved also in such numbers as to allow the sacrifice of many specimens for purposes of comparison and study. He was res