22 6 LOCIS AGASSI*. [CHAP. 



a favourite study with him from 1833 to 1846, when 

 lie wholly abandoned them. The same is true of the 

 Mya and Trigonia. He announced ten volumes of his 

 " Contributions to the Natural History of the United 

 States," and only four were published ; and, but for his 

 son, his researches on the Florida corals would never 

 have been issued. Part II. of his "Principles of 

 Zoology" was never published. 



Notwithstanding these serious defects, it is impossible 

 not to admire his great scientific intelligence, and not to 

 'recognize his immense scientific force. No one was 

 such an able instigator of scientific researches. He 

 had a magnetic power, and he used it constantly, what- 

 ever the subject to be investigated might be. His two 

 principal passions in natural history were teaching and 

 collecting specimens. As a teacher he was unrivalled 

 and unique ; and from the first, as a student at Zurich 

 until the last ten days of his life, we may say that he 

 taught. He was always ready to deliver a lecture, - 

 on the glacier of the Aar, at the Little Academy at 

 Munich, at Neuchatel, at Boston, at Rio Janeiro, at 

 Lake Superior, at sea, on the Amazons, at Cambridge, 

 at Penikese Island, anywhere. He would withdraw for 

 half an hour at most, sometimes for only ten minutes, 

 and then would begin on the subject chosen, speak- 

 ing with an abundance of detail, broad general views, 

 and philosophical conclusions. 



As to his other passion, that of collecting specimens 

 and organizing museums, he was a man of wonderful 

 resource. He was insatiable, and had a real mania fr 

 possessing and keeping everything; and he never re- 

 jected any specimen or drawing. 



