xl Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 



success, to draw a distinction between earlier work which, ex- 

 cept for the illustrative plates, was all his own, and later publi- 

 cations in which others had a share. To a student, collaboration 

 in the work of a master is in itself a high privilege as a prepara- 

 tion for independent research, but minute and conscientious 

 work done under the direction of a master mind does not always 

 imply initiative ability. It is undoubtedly true that without col- 

 laboration Agassi z could not have produced some of his most 

 important later work; on the other hand, it is none the less true 

 that the individuality and dominating genius of the master are 

 everywhere unmistakably manifest, both in the plan and in 

 the manner of execution. Certainly to many, who were privi- 

 leged to take part with him in his work, the association brought 

 its due meed of recognition, even in cases in which it was not 

 followed by cons^^icuous independent achievement. 



Agassiz was an indefatigable collector. In his student days 

 he had already brought together extensive botanical and zoologi- 

 cal collections which, acquired later by purchase for the Museum 

 of Natural History of the City of Neuchatel, grew yearly in im- 

 portance under his care. One of his very early aspirations, 

 whose full realization was long deferred, was to be the director 

 of a great museum. To him, however, an ideal museum meant 

 much more than a well-ordered array of specimens; it must 

 be also a great storehouse of material, including many spec- 

 imens of a kind, accessible for exhaustive study as well as for 

 exchange. In America he collected on a generous scale and, 

 for a time, sent large consignments to Neuchatel, Berlin, and 

 Paris. In 1848 a revolution in the Canton of Neuchatel 

 virtually ended the Prussian regime and, at the same time, 

 interrupted the work of the Acadc'mie. Pteleased from obliga- 

 tions to the fatherland, he accepted the chair of zoology and 

 geology created for him in the organization of the Lawrence 

 Scientific School, and brought his own accumulated material to 

 Cambridge. Always collecting, and always embarrassed by lack 

 of room in which even to store his treasures, to say nothing of 

 arranging them, the need of an adequate museum establishment 

 soon became urgent. Private munificence and a large appropri- 

 ation granted by the Massachusetts legislature provided the 

 means for a beginning, in 1859, of the noble Museum of Com- 

 parative Zoology at Harvard, which largely engrossed his 

 activity during the remaining fourteen years of his life and 

 which filial devotion has since enormously developed in sym- 



