I845-] HIS LAST LECTURE AT NEUCHATEL. 247 



In the spring of 1845, Agassiz delivered his last pub- 

 lic course of twelve lectures on the " Plan de la Creation," 

 showing the successive development of organized beings. 

 It was followed with more attention and by a more numer- 

 ous audience than any of his previous annual series of 

 lectures. The news that he was to undertake a journey 

 to the New World under the auspices, and with the h<flp 

 of the king of Prussia and prince of Neuchatel, who con- 

 tributed from his " private purse three thousand dollars, 

 caused a surprise mingled with fear that he would prob- 

 ably never return to resume his position at Neuchatel. 

 Everybody in Neuchatel highly appreciated, not only the 

 great savant who was truly the founder of the Academy, 

 -which, but for him, would not have been established 

 for years,- -but also the friend and charmer so highly 

 esteemed and beloved, and went anxiously to hear him 

 once more ; anticipating, with good reason, that this 

 last course might be regarded as his scientific testa- 

 ment. 



Agassiz took care to dictate his last lecture, and pub- 

 lished it in the first number of the " Revue Suisse," 

 just transferred from Lausanne to Neuchatel, in August, 

 1845. The title of the lecture is : " Notice sur la Geo- 

 graphic des Animaux, par L. Agassiz " ; and it begins 

 with the following sentence : " All organized beings, 

 plants as well as animals, are confined to a special 

 area [or, as he calls it, " ont une patrie "]. Man alone 

 is spread over the whole surface of the earth." Strange 

 to say, one of his first impressions, after studying the 

 different races of man he met with in America, led him 

 to reverse this opinion, and a few years later he pub- 



