534 LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



deterred him. The " Poissons Fossiles ' had 

 shown him the peril of entering upon such an 

 enterprise without capital. Perhaps he would 

 never have dared to undertake it but for a 

 friendly suggestion which opened a way out 

 of his perplexities. Mr. Francis C. Gray, of 

 Boston, who felt not only the interest of a 

 personal friend in the matter, but also that of 

 one who was himself a lover of letters and 

 science, proposed an appeal to the public spirit 

 of the country in behalf of a work devoted 

 entirely to the Natural History of the United 

 States. Mr. Gray assumed the direction of 

 the business details, set the subscription afloat, 

 stimulated its success by his own liberal con- 

 tributions, by letters, by private and public 

 appeals. The result far exceeded the most 

 sanguine expectations of those interested in 

 its success. Indeed, considering the purely 

 scientific character of the work, the number 

 of subscribers for it was extraordinary, and 

 showed again the hold Agassiz had taken upon 

 the minds and affections of the people in gen- 

 eral. The contributors were by no means 

 confined to Boston and Cambridge, although 

 the Massachusetts list was naturally the larg- 

 est, nor were they found exclusively among lit- 

 erary and scientific circles. On the contrary, 



