WALCOTT. — ALEXANDER AGASSIZ. 35 



have become well known throughout the scientific world. During 

 his long service at the head of the Museum and under a variety of 

 titles, he expended from his own resources for collections and the 

 buildings to hold them, more than $1,200,000, not including very 

 considerable sums contributed to other allied interests or to the general 

 purposes of the University. At the end of the year 1874 he set out on 

 the first of the many distant expeditions which were made at intervals 

 through the rest of his life. This journey took him to Chile and Peru, 

 and during the course of it he made the exploration of lake Titicaca, 

 an account of which is given in our proceedings for the year 1876. 



His quick eye showed him at Tilibiche in Peru, a fossil coral reef 

 at an elevation of nearly 3000 feet above the sea and 20 miles inland, 

 and he noted with a certain satisfaction the evidence that Darwin's 

 observations had caused on his part an underestimate of the amount 

 of recent elevation of this coast. 



He now entered upon that series of deep sea investigations which in 

 some form had always been of exceeding interest to him. He directed 

 three expeditions in the Atlantic on board the U. S. Steamer " Blake " 

 and three in the Pacific on the " Albatross." The vast material col- 

 lected on these trips was, with combined wisdom and generosity and 

 in obedience to the rule of the Museum laid down in his father's time, 

 distributed for purposes of description and study to those scientific 

 men everywhere who were best qualified for the work. 



Sir John Murray says, and no living authority is better able to 

 make the statement, " If we can say that we now know the physi- 

 cal and biological conditions of the great ocean basins in their broad 

 general outlines — and I believe we can do so — the present state of 

 our knowledge is due to the combined work and observations of a 

 great many men belonging to many nationalities, but most probably 

 more to the work and inspiration of Alexander Agassiz than to any 

 other single man." 



In these later years he was also much interested in the study of 

 the coral reefs. He organized many expeditions to all parts of the 

 world — to the Maldives, to Australia and to remote portions of the 

 Pacific. He saw, explored, and accurately described every important 

 coral reef region on the globe and having done so he felt that he was 

 ready to give his own views to the world. 



Darwin saw but one atoll and upon that founded his theory of coral 

 building. Agassiz was at work in his last days upon the publication 

 which would have given to the world the well considered conclusions 

 acquired by the studies of nearly a lifetime. Though his own final 



