1846-47-] FIRST VISIT TO NEW YORK. 283 



this, his first experience, everything was new to him, 

 the people, the natural history, and American cus- 

 toms and society, - - and his first impressions were most 

 encouraging. With his extraordinary penetration and 

 far-seeing vision, he realized what stores of scientific 

 problems were in readiness, wanting only a little push 

 to start the whole machinery of thorough researches 

 over half a continent. It was just the work for him; 

 American natural history had found its leader. 



When I said that Agassiz was much encouraged by 

 what he saw of American society, during October and 

 November, 1846, it must not be understood that it was 

 the fashionable world which he saw rather limited 

 although it was then, in comparison to what it is now. 

 During the first five or six years of his life in America 

 Agassiz paid very little attention to what is called 

 fashionable society ; he even avoided it, reserving his 

 letters of introduction, and taking care to deliver them 

 only at the last moment of his stay in New York and 

 Washington, in order to escape invitations. His time 

 was too precious to allow dissipation of any sort ; so 

 much so, that, on his first day in New York, instead 

 of examining the magnificent bay and great city, he 

 begged his cousin, Auguste Mayor, a resident of Brook- 

 lyn, to take him far up Greenwich Street, to the home 

 of the only American palaeo-ichthyologist, Mr. W. C. 

 Redfield, and there he passed a part of the day, looking 

 at fossil fishes. 



His means did not allow him to go to first-class hotels, 

 and he patronized second- and even third-class houses, 

 or, more accurately, inns, as they were then, at Albany, 



