140 bulletin: museum of compakative zoology. 



times observed outbursts of indignation, and impatience in Alexander 

 Agassiz, I was always reminded of a passage in the quarrel between 

 Cassius and Brutus in the play of Julius Caesar. 

 Cassius exclaims; 



"Have you not love enough to bear with me, 

 When that rash humour which my mother gave me 

 Makes me forgetful?" 



And Brutus replies, 



"Yes, Cassius; and from henceforth, 

 When you are over-earnest with your Brutus, 

 He'll think your mother chides, and leave you so." 



In 1849, at the age of 13 years, the young Agassiz joined his father 

 in America, and his later education took place at Harvard College 

 and the Lawrence Scientific School at Cambridge, Mass., where the 

 elder Agassiz occupied the Chair of Natural History. He used to 

 refer with much pleasure and satisfaction to the manner in which he 

 was befriended, soon after his arrival in the country, by Augustus 

 Lowell, the father of our President Lowell. In 1855 Alexander 

 Agassiz graduated at Harvard. Two years later he took the degree 

 of S. B. in Civil Engineering, and later a second S. B. degree in 

 Natural History. Between 1856 and 1859 he taught in the Agassiz 

 School, and here it was he first met, as a pupil, the young lady who 

 was to become his wife. In 1859 he w r as appointed an Assistant in 

 the United States Coast Survey, and worked in California and Wash- 

 ington Territory. 



In 1860, at the age of twenty-six, he married Anna Russell. It was 

 a love match, and the young couple started out with a very slender 

 income. In the same year Agassiz was appointed Assistant Zoologist 

 in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, founded by 

 his father. His connection with this institution lasted as long as he 

 lived — a full half century. During half of that period he acted as 

 Curator, succeeding his father. On resigning the Curatorship in 

 September, 1898, he served on the Faculty of the Museum as Secretary. 

 In 1902 he was made Director of the University Museum. 



In 1863 Agassiz became interested in coal mining in Pennsylvania, 

 but afterwards turned his attention to the copper mines of Lake 

 Superior, acting as Superintendent of the Calumet and Hecla Mines 

 from March, 1867 to October, 1868. It was in consequence of his 

 ability, attention, devotion, and business habits that these mines 



