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SOME NEW BOOKS. 



Agassiz. 



Life, Letters, and Works of Louis Agassiz. By Jules Marcou. 8vo. Two 

 vols. Pp. xxii., 302, and x., 318, with vi. pis. New York and London : 

 Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 1896. Price 17s. nett. 



For the writing of this biography Mr. Jules Marcou has many 

 qualifications. As a compatriot of Agassiz in both Old and New- 

 Worlds, as an intimate acquaintance and occasional collaborator, he 

 stands throughout on familiar ground. The French writings of 

 Agassiz of course present no difficulty to him, while his mastery of 

 English is remarkably exemplified in the fluent pages of the work 

 itself — one or two mis-spellings, and the use of " editor " in one 

 instance where " publisher " seems to be intended, are the only 

 gallicisms that have caught our eyes. But it is still more important 

 that, to a knowledge of the facts, Mr. Marcou adds a singularly out- 

 spoken nature. This, and the lapse of time, enables him to refer to 

 passages in the life of Agassiz that were slurred over by previous 

 biographers. We will not go so far as to say that there are none 

 living who will be offended by Mr. Marcou's remarks, but his attacks 

 are tairly impartial and add piquancy to a book that is far from 

 dull. The relations of Agassiz with Desor, Schimper, H.J. Clark, 

 J. D. Forbes, and others are expounded in a manner that seems very free 

 from personal bias, though there is perhaps a little prejudice against 

 the Englishmen who did not at once appoint Agassiz professor at 

 Oxford or head of a department in the British Museum, and this 

 creeps out in the words, " English geologists are always strongly 

 disinclined to accept any new truth if discovered by foreigners." But 

 on the whole the book bears the stamp of truth, praise and blame of 

 its subject being equally distributed ; it affords a fair estimate of the 

 scientific position and capacities of Agassiz, and is probably as near 

 an approach to a final appreciation and biography of the great 

 naturalist as we can expect to receive. To this it may be added that 

 the book is well arranged and adequately illustrated, that it contains a 

 list of all writings connected with the life of Agassiz, an account of 

 all portraits and memorials of him, a bibliography of 425 writings by 

 him, and a careful index. All working geologists and zoologists, for 

 whom and not for the general public the work is intended, may be 

 urged with confidence to its perusal if not to its purchase. 



It is not contended that all scientific men of to-day will endorse 

 the judgments of Mr. Marcou, for his scientific opinions are not alto- 

 gether those now in favour. These, however, place him in more 

 sympathy with his subject, who was himself a protestant against the 

 evolutionary movement, and are easily discounted according to the 

 private tastes of each reader. People in England, for instance, are 

 not hkely to concede that " from 1795 to 1873 these two savants 

 [Cuvier and Agassiz] ' de tres grand envergure ' gave to natural 



