34 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



" The Revision of the Echini," which appeared in the years 1872-74, 

 is the best known work of Agassiz and was at once recognized as the 

 performance of a master and made him the leading authority on the 

 subject. The thoroughness of his methods is shown by this extract 

 from a letter to a friend from Leuk, Switzerland, August, 1870, " I have 

 done now with my examination of the Echini collections, having seen 

 them all." It was of this work that Jeffries Wyman spoke when he 

 said that the son had done a piece of work that would live as long as 

 anything accomplished by the father." The manner in which the 

 work was performed by Agassiz is well shown by the quotation from 

 his letter given above — he saw every specimen that was worth seeing 

 before he felt justified in stating his own conclusions. 



The activity that marked these early years down to 1873 was a 

 marvel to all — he was intensely busy, and capable of undertaking 

 the most strenuous physical and mental labors, his working day was 

 habitually more than half of the twenty-four hours. 



In 1869 came a serious illness from which modern surgery might 

 have brought a more satisfactory cure than that which he obtained. 

 Some of the consequences of this illness affected his mode of life 

 permanently — he avoided thereafter, so far as possible, our New 

 England winters. 



The end of the year 1873 was a time of great sadness for Agassiz. 

 His father and his wife died within ten days of each other. He as- 

 sumed the direction of the Museum and for 37 years labored for its 

 development and administration, a serious task, if it had been his 

 sole occupation. 



Louis Agassiz had opened a school for natural history studies on the 

 island of Penikese in Buzzards Bay in the summer of 1873. His 

 immense capacity for teaching, his love for it and success in it 

 carried the school through the first season, bvit it was the last great 

 effort of his life. In the succeeding year Alexander Agassiz reluctantly 

 took up the burden, he had not shared his father's enthusiastic belief 

 in the possibility of carrying on a school at this remote point. He 

 loyally made the attempt, however, and when it became evident that 

 the necessary financial support could not be obtained, he characteris- 

 tically did not hesitate to drop the enterprise and pay the deficit from 

 his own pocket. 



A few years after the closing of the Penikese school he built in the 

 vicinity of his house at Castle Hill, Newport, an excellent marine 

 laboratory with the required accommodations for about 12 students. 

 Here much valuable work was done by a number of men whose names 



