64 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [CHAP. iv. 



besides Dinkel, he now had a second draughtsman, M. 

 Weber, another of his Munich friends. The expenses 

 had grown so large that he began to think that he had 

 " committed an imprudence in throwing myself into an 

 enterprise so vast in proportion to my means as my 

 ' Poissons fossiles.' His publisher, Cotta of Stuttgart, 

 had abandoned the undertaking as being too expensive 

 and attended with too many aieas, and Agassiz bravely 

 resolved to be his own publisher, a very rash decision 

 on his part, taking into account his complete lack of 

 business capacity ; but as he says : " Having begun it, I 

 have no alternative ; my only safety is in success. I 

 have a firm conviction that I shall bring my work to 

 a happy issue, though often in the evening I hardly 

 know how the mill is to be turned to-morrow." 



At the meeting of the British Association for the 

 advancement of science in Dublin, which Agassiz at- 

 tended, another appropriation of one hundred guineas, 

 similar to the one voted the preceding year toward the 

 facilitating of researches upon English fossil fishes, was 

 granted him, which allowed him to pay his two artists. 

 His presence in England and Ireland greatly helped 

 the subscriptions to his work. English savants acted 

 generously, and Agassiz's reputation grew rapidly 

 among them. But, nevertheless, English enthusiasm 

 never went so far as to offer him a single official posi- 

 tion during his whole life. 



In France the number of subscriptions was far below 

 what it was in England, only fifteen copies being dis- 

 posed of. Again, at this time, the loss of Cuvier was 



