3 j LOUIS AGASSIZ. [CHAP. xiv. 



students, and it is to be regretted that it was never 

 completed. 



A great j)leasure was in reserve for Agassiz ; namely, 

 the arrival of his son Alexander in the middle of June, 

 1849, brought from Neuchatel by a cousin, Dr. Mayor, 

 and the evangelist, Marc Fivaz, of Newark Valley, in 

 the state of New York, the first naturalist companion 

 of Louis Agassiz at Orbe. Born at Neuchatel the ist 

 of December, 1835, Alexander, as he was christened, in 

 honour of his uncle, Alexander Braun, was a lad of thir- 

 teen years, well developed and fine looking, but more 

 serious and inclined to solitude than boys of his age 

 generally are. Agassiz was delighted and grateful for 

 all the marks of interest and kindness shown his son by 

 every one in Cambridge and Boston. In a letter to me, 

 dated Cambridge, June 20, 1849, Agassiz says: " Je 

 reviens de New York avec mon fils, c'est vous dire que 

 je suis bien heureux maintenant. C'est dans toute la 

 vcrite de 1'exprcssion et a part de la partialitc paternelle 

 un charmant gar^on." 



From the first day of his settlement at Cambridge, 

 Agassiz was befriended by both Professors C. C. Felton 

 and Benjamin Pierce. Every day they called at his house, 

 and generally more than once, helping and cheering him 

 by true friendship. Professor Felton, whose second wife 

 was the granddaughter of Colonel Perkins, a mer- 

 chant-prince of Boston of the beginning of this cen- 

 tury, -had a very attractive home, in which Agassiz 

 was always welcome, and even indulged to his heart's 

 content Felton was an extremely amiable man, and a 

 scholar of repute ; and mutual attraction soon brought 



