1807-27.] MOTIER-EN--VULY. 7 



healthy children two sons, Louis and Auguste, and 

 two daughters, Olympe and Cecile were born to 

 them ; and although the parish was small and conse- 

 quently of limited means, it was most gratifying to find 

 themselves among relatives and friends ; for pastor 

 Agassiz had resided for some time at Constantine, a 

 village near Avranches, where his father was minister, 

 and it was during his stay there that he became ac- 

 quainted with Miss Rose Mayor, his future wife, who 

 was a daughter of the country physician at Cudrefin, a 

 village only a few miles distant from Motier. It may 

 be said that the inhabitants of the whole peninsula 

 of Vuly, Cudrefin, and Constantine, greeted pastor 

 Agassiz and his wife, as their own people returned. 



Born and educated in such a place as Motier, sur- 

 rounded by water and marshes, with the Oberland 

 always in full view in front, and the summit of the 

 Jura in the rear, it is no wonder that Agassiz became 

 an ichthyologist and a glacialist. Everything which 

 met his eye, from infancy until manhood, seems to 

 have awaked in him a curiosity to know his surround- 

 ings. It was as natural for him to take to the study 

 of fishes and of glaciers as it is for sons of seamen to 

 go to sea, or for "vignerons" (vine-dressers) to go to 

 the vineyard, or for the " gauchos " to ride on the prai- 

 ries of South America, or for the Arabs to cross the 

 desert on camels. It might almost be said that Louis 

 Agassiz, as we shall see more fully by and by, was a re- 

 markable instance of atavism of the Swiss lake-dwellers 

 of prehistoric time. 



Almost as soon as he was able to move alone, he 



