1 847-49.] DEATH OF HIS FIRST WIFE. 19 



the first wife of the great naturalist, Louis Agassiz, the 

 mother of his children. 



Alexander Braun had removed his family from Carls- 

 ruhe to Freiburg, after his appointment as professor of 

 botany at the university ; and almost as soon as he was 

 settled there, his sister, Mrs. Agassiz, became so ill, that, 

 after the month of December, 1847, she was unable to 

 leave her bed, except for a few hours each day. Phthisis 

 made rapid progress and became incurable. 



Professor Braun kept with him the children of his sister 

 until he heard from Agassiz, who asked him to conduct 

 his two daughters to Switzerland, to their grandmother, 

 where they were to remain until he could himself go 

 for them, or arrange for their joining him in his lately 

 adopted country. The son Alexander, then twelve 

 years old, stayed a year longer in the Braun family. 

 Before separating, the children received the first visit 

 from an American family, Mrs. Bruen and her two 

 daughters, the oldest since so well known as the wife 

 of the celebrated author of "The Italian Sculptors," 

 Charles C. Perkins, of Boston, friends of their father, 

 who came specially to Freiburg, in August, 1848, in 

 order to tell them, viva voce, how kindly their father 

 had been received, and how highly he was esteemed in 

 the New World. A few weeks after this visit, Braun 

 took his two nieces, Ida and Pauline, and placed them 

 under the guardianship of their grandmother, Mrs. 

 Agassiz, at Cudrefin, on the lake of Neuchatel. 



The year 1848 was most eventful in the life of Agas- 

 siz: first, in his appointment as professor at Cambridge; 

 second, in the dismissal of his secretary, Desor; third, 



