1836-37-] DEATH OF HIS FATHER. 115 



tion, may be considered as the climax of his scientific 

 life, as far as originality of research is concerned : it was 

 his apogee. It is not that Agassiz's publications since 

 that time are devoid of originality ; not by any means. 

 But after 1837 he always made too much use of others 

 in the work of writing and too often of observation ; and 

 it is easy to detect the lack of unity, and at the same 

 time the inequality of value in all his publications after 

 1837. To be .sure, Agassiz published a great deal more 

 after 1837 than he did before, but the quantity did not 

 compensate for the quality. 



His good father- -a true, practical, and business man 

 - died a few weeks after the meeting of the Swiss nat- 

 uralists at Neuchatel. He much enjoyed seeing his son, 

 still so young, the president of an assembly of savants 

 collected not only from all the cantons of Switzerland, 

 but even from Berlin, Paris, Strasbourg, and Frankfort. 

 Rodolphe Benjamin Louis Agassiz was born the 3d of 

 March, 1776, and died on the 6th of September, 1837, 

 at Concise, in the parsonage of that beautiful village, 

 at the age of sixty-one years. We may say of him, 

 what we said previously of Cuvier : had he lived ten 

 years longer, it would have been to the advantage of 

 Louis, who so much needed good advice and restraint 

 in his already too great expenses. 



During his stay in Paris, in 1832, Agassiz was the 

 witness of the great help afforded to Cuvier by his 

 principal assistant naturalist, M. Charles L. Laurillard. 

 In the laboratory, in his library, or in his cabinet, 

 Cuvier always found everything in perfect order, and 

 ready for the special work he was engaged in. Lau- 



