8 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [i HAP. xin. 



storage of his collections and microscopical and . 

 tomical studies. The removal was mainly effected dur- 

 ing April by Pourtales and Girard, who brought in a 

 dory all the specimens from the East Boston house, 

 and stored them partly in the cellar of Harvard Hall, 

 partly in the old bath-house near the Charles River, 

 and partly in the cellar of the Oxford Street house ; and 

 when Agassiz returned from the South the 4th of April, 

 1848, he settled at once at Cambridge. Under some 

 pretext Desor had remained at the house at East Boston, 

 and it was even determined to keep that house a year 

 longer, in order to use it fo^ the reception of all the 

 assistants and friends expected to arrive soon from 

 Switzerland, the Cambridge house being too small to 

 admit of such an increase of inhabitants. John A. 

 Lowell was frightened when Agassiz told him of what 

 he proposed to do, and it was with some difficulty that 

 he at last persuaded Agassiz to abandon the scheme, 

 as too expensive and entirely disproportionate to his 

 pecuniary resources. 



We have now arrived at the most critical moment in 

 the life of Agassiz. Different publications in French 

 and in German made by Desor and Karl Vogt are so 

 one-sided and ill-natured in their tone, that an exact 

 history of the whole affair is here an absolute neces- 

 sity. The continual painful discussions, on scientific 

 and domestic subjects, between Agassiz and his secre- 

 tary Desor increased to such an extent that Agassiz's 

 best friends on this side of the Atlantic, Messrs. Mayor 

 and Christinat, advised a separation. 



