INTRODUCTION 1 3 



needs no telling here. He saw clearly the importance of organizing 

 expeditions to keep the Museum growing and sent out many field 

 parties and later went on long trips himself. Thus Garman went to 

 the Bad Lands of the West, in the Indian days, and brought back the 

 collections of vertebrate fossils later described by Scott and Osborn. 

 Alexander's father had already raised the money to buy the great 

 Lesquereau collection of fossil plants which still remains the most 

 important in America. After a while Charles Eastman came to be 

 Vertebrate Palaeontologist in the Museum, but he never taught and 

 was in time called elsewhere. Still, the collections have continued to 

 grow, and Harvard now has its own fossil fields in Wyoming where 

 students work every summer and whence they bring back many 

 beautiful and significant specimens. 



Alexander Agassiz during his younger years was probably the 

 foremost Marine Zoologist in the world. He continued through life 

 his interest in the Echinoderms. As I have said, he was a sensitive, 

 shy, retiring man, impatient of crowds and of publicity, at times al- 

 most violently so. It would not be fair, however, to say that he was 

 not essentially a teacher as well as an investigator, though in an en- 

 tirely different way from his father. During all of his later years he 

 took several young men upon his deep sea expeditions or while he was 

 studying coral reefs, who have become distinguished teachers and 

 investigators today and who still recall with a thrill their recollections 

 of seeing Agassiz brought on deck on a mattress, limp from seasick- 

 ness, to spot, with uncanny accuracy, the specimens as they came 

 from the deep sea dredge, setting aside one by one the creatures 

 which were well known from those which were new and worthy of 

 special study, and which should be turned over to the artists of the 

 expedition. The life of Alexander Agassiz has been as well told by 

 his son George as was his father's life history told by Mrs. Louis 

 Agassiz. 



It has been a great pleasure to receive, from the hand of my friend, 

 Mr. George Russell Agassiz, Alexander's eldest son, the introductory 

 chapter which follows this disjointed little historical preface and 

 which gives an account of the organization and development of the 

 Museum of Comparative Zoology as a distinct scientific institution 

 apart from the other "cabinets of natural history." 



Circumstances which are difficult to understand clearly at this late 



