'-4 LOUIS AGASS/Z. [CIIAI-. xvi. 



1860 and 1862 ; and then the work was interrupted, 

 and never resumed. 



The large number of subscribers to such a costly 

 and special publication proves the great popularity 

 attained by Agassiz during the first eight years of his 

 stay in America. He had succeeded in exciting an 

 interest in questions of natural history, until then much 

 neglected, not only as a special pursuit, but as a part 

 of the general education of the people at large. The 

 citizens liberally showed their interest in the under- 

 taking, not only because they thought that the subject 

 was worthy, but also to reward a naturalist of world 

 renown, whom they wanted to attach more and more 

 to themselves, and persuade to make America his 

 home and adopted country. This explains both the 

 success of the subscription, and the following optimistic 

 sentences in the preface of Volume I. : "I must beg my 

 European readers to remember that this work is written 

 in America, and more especially for America ; and that 

 the community to which it is particularly addressed has 

 very different wants from those of the reading public in 

 Europe. There is not a class of learned men here, distinct 

 from the other cultivated members of the community. 

 On the contrary, so general is the desire for knowledge, 

 that I expect to see my book read by operatives, by 

 fishermen, by farmers, quite as extensively as by the 

 students in our colleges, or by the learned profes- 

 sions; and it is but proper that I should endeavour to 

 make myself understood by all " (" Contributions Natu- 

 ral History of the United States," Vol. I., Preface, 

 I'- x). 



