374 LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



LOUIS AGASSIZ TO SIR PHILIP EGERTON. 



NEUCHATEL, September 7, 1844. 



... I write in all haste to ask for any ad- 

 dress to which I can safely forward my report 

 on the Slieppy fishes, so that they may arrive 

 without fail in time for the meeting at York. 

 Since my last letter I have made progress in 

 this kind of research. I have sacrificed all 

 my duplicates of our present fishes to furnish 

 skeletons. I have prepared more than a hun- 

 dred since I last wrote you, and I can now 

 determine the family, and even the genus, sim- 

 ply by seeing the skull. There remains noth- 

 ing impossible now in the determination of 

 fishes, and if I can obtain certain exotic gen- 

 era, which I have not as yet, I can make an 

 osteology of fishes as complete as that which 

 we possess for the other classes of vertebrates. 

 Every family has its special type of skull. 

 All this is extremely interesting. I have al- 

 ready corrected a mass of inaccurate identifi- 

 cations established upon external characters ; 

 and as for fossils, I have recognized and char- 

 acterized seventeen new genera among the less 

 perfect undetermined specimens you have sent 

 me. Several families appear now for the first 

 time among the fossils. I have been able to 



