218 LOUIS AGASSI Z. [CHAP. ix. 



of the infinite variety of fossil forms. In his principal 

 work, ' Recherches sur les Poissons fossiles,' 1833- 

 1843 (4to, atlas folio), he placed them before the world, 

 arranged in a methodical manner, with excellent descrip- 

 tions and illustrations. His power of discernment and 

 penetration in determining even the most fragmentary 

 remains is truly astonishing ; and if his order of Ganoids 

 is an assemblage of forms very different from what is now 

 understood by that term, he was, at any rate, the first 

 who recognized that such an order of fishes existed." * 



Agassiz was one of those naturalists who find it easier 

 to discover differences than to bring together specimens 

 of fossils. He possessed a rare power of discerning 

 the smallest differences between allied forms of ani- 

 mals ; but sometimes he went too 'far, as in the case of 

 the Eocene fossil fishes in the flysch of Claris (Switz- 

 erland), where the cleavage resulting from the breaking 

 and compressing of the strata, during the dislocation of 

 the Alps, deformed some specimens to such an extent 

 that Agassiz was led to establish six species of Anen- 

 ckelum, all of which really belong to a single species, 

 Lepidopus glaronensis. The same mistake has been 

 noted by Dr. A. Wettstein and A. Heim for species 

 of the genus Palceorhynchum, Acanus, etc. (" Actes de 

 la Societe Helvetique des Sciences naturelles," Geneva, 

 August, 1886, pp. 46, 47). India-rubber models of some 

 of these fossil fishes, when pulled in certain directions, 

 give as many species as Agassiz founded ; and it is evi- 

 dent that Agassiz, in some cases, too easily multiplied 



1 " Ichthyology," by A. Giinther, in " Encyclopedia Britannica," ninth 

 edition, Vol. XII., p. 634, London, 1881. 



