i 7 4 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [CHAP. xxi. 



object has been by no means less prominent than the 

 two others, but, if possible, has engrossed my thoughts 

 more, to make it an educational institution ; to give 

 it a widespread influence upon the study, the love, and 

 the knowledge of nature throughout the country. . . . 

 I have laboured under many obstacles in the carrying 

 out of this scheme. Often, for want of means to pay 

 salaries, the assistants have been so few, and their 

 knowledge so immature, that it was impossible to 

 organize any extensive scheme of instruction." l 



During the spring of 1869 Agassiz joined Pourtales 

 on the United States coast survey steamer Bibb, en- 

 gaged in deep-sea dredging between Florida, Cuba, and 

 the Bahama Islands. Dr. William Stimpson, a favourite 

 pupil of Agassiz, had inaugurated dredging for marine 

 animals along the New England coasts, but to Pourtales 

 are due the systematic investigations of the beds of the 

 Atlantic Ocean, on the American side, having for their 

 aim the fauna existing at different depths. In the two 

 years 1867 and 1868, Pourtales had succeeded so far as 

 to leave no doubt that "animal life exists at great depths 

 in as great a diversity and as great an abundance as in 

 shallow water." 



Agassiz in his " Report upon Deep-sea Dredgings in 

 the Gulf Stream, during the Third Cruise of the United 

 States Steamer Bibb," Cambridge, November, 1869, says, 

 pp. 363 and 367 : " The object of my own connection with 

 the present cruise was to ascertain how far the last inves- 

 tigations covered the ground to be surveyed, and to what 



1 "Report of the Director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology" !<>i 

 the year 1868. 



