130 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



boy marched out of the State House with the coveted volume 

 under his arm was never forgotten by him and often related in 

 after years. But Dr. Gould's kindness did not stop here ; he 

 brought young Stimpson to the notice of Agassiz, then in the 

 first flush of successful teaching at Cambridge, and introduced 

 him to the Boston Society of Natural History. His relatives 

 were anxious that the boy should go into business ; his excursions 

 to the sea-shore and the dredging work which, unaided, he had 

 already begun, were looked on with no favorable eye, and only 

 the urgent representations of some of those who had become in 

 terested in the boy and saw in him a capacity for better things, 

 saved him from a fate he detested. As a compromise he was sent 

 out with a civil engineer to learn that profession, but his em 

 ployer declared he was too fond of hunting for land shells to 

 make a good surveyor, and advised that he be allowed to follow 

 the career which his inclinations so strongly declared for. He was 

 allowed to enter the Latin School in 1848. The following sum 

 mer he managed by some means to get off on a fishing smack 

 bound for Grand Manan, and devoted his whole energies to the 

 collection and study of the marine animals of that vicinity. Still, 

 in the face of strong opposition, he succeeded in joining the work 

 ers at Agassiz' laboratory in October, 1850. Wherever he went 

 his enthusiasm and lovable qualities raised up friends, and through 

 their aid an appointment was secured to him as naturalist to 

 the North Pacific exploring expedition under Ringgold (later com 

 manded by Captain John Rodgers, U. S. N.), which was sent 

 out by the United States in 1852. With a paid appointment in 

 Government service, those who had persistently opposed his 

 ambition began to give way and confess that there might be some 

 thing in it after all, though doubtless laying greater stress on that 

 " something" for which Stimpson cared least. 



He joined the expedition Nov. 23, 1852, and was absent four 

 years, during which he visited Japan, Bering Strait, and many 



