208 LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



contagious, and he created or developed that 

 in which he believed. 



In Neuchatel the presence of the young 

 professor was felt at once as a new and stimu- 

 lating influence. The little town suddenly 

 became a centre of scientific activity. A so- 

 ciety for the pursuit of the natural sciences, 

 of which he was the first secretary, sprang 

 into life. The scientific collections, which had 

 already attained, under the care of M. Louis 

 Coulon, considerable value, presently assumed 

 the character and proportions of a well-or- 

 dered museum. In M. Coulon Agassiz found 

 a generous friend and a scientific colleague 

 who sympathized with his noblest aspirations, 

 and was ever ready to sustain all his efforts in 

 behalf of scientific progress. Together they 

 worked in arranging, enlarging, and building 

 up a museum of natural history which soon 

 became known as one of the best local institu- 

 tions of the kind in Europe. 



Beside his classes at the gymnasium, Agas- 

 siz collected about him, by invitation, a small 

 audience of friends and neighbors, to whom 

 he lectured during the winter on botany, on 

 zoology, on the philosophy of nature. The 

 instruction was of the most familiar and in- 

 formal character, and was continued in later 



