OP ARTS AND SCIENCES. , 319 



Agassiz was, however, not destined to resume liis old habits of in- 

 vestigation and publication. The will of Mr. Francis C. Gray estab- 

 lished in 1858 a fund for the support of a Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology ; and a liberal private subscription, seconded by a large gift 

 from the State, assured the future of the establishment. Henceforth 

 the current of Asfassiz's thouijht ran in a new channel. In the words 

 of a recent notice of him : " He determined to found a great museum 

 arranged to show his views of the relations of living animals among 

 themselves, and their connections in the geological and embryological 

 successions. Such a museum he hoped to leave as a legacy — his all — 

 to the people of this country, and to make it at once a mark of his 

 affection and a monument of his labor. He gave less and less of his 

 time to those special investigations by which he had gained his reputa- 

 tion, and pondered more and more on this museum which should serve 

 as a sort of tabulation of the creative thought by presenting the crea- 

 tions themselves in a connected order." 



Day by day he labored to increase the collections, and to push their 

 arrangement. His Brazilian expedition, undertaken in 1865, at the 

 cost of Mr. Nathaniel Thayer, brought back vast riches ; but not evea 

 the sight of fimiliar fishes, that took him back to Munich and the time 

 of Spix and Martins, could turn him again to special studies. He kept 

 on with ever-increa^ing toil, and yet preserved his relations to the 

 public, his popular lectures, his interest in education and agriculture, 

 his voluminous correspondence. All this, in addition to his duties as 

 Professor of Natural History, was too much even for his powerful frame, 

 and in 1869 he was seized with a cerebral attack which threatened his 

 life. From it he recovered only to enter, with all the spirit of a youth 

 just beginning the world, upon the Hassler expedition of 1871, which was 

 under the direction of the Coast Survey. He endured without complaint 

 the hardships of a voyage round Cape Horn in a small steamer, and 

 returned laden with new collections. 



The last year of his life was a very happy one. He saw the museum 

 well supplied with funds, growing in size, and advancing towards 

 arrangement. There came besides, from Mr. John Anderson, the gift 

 of the Island of Penikese and of a large sum in money, to found a 

 summer school of Natural History. It was at once started with about 

 fifty pupils, and Agassiz had the great pleasure of founding the first 

 establishment of the kind in the world.* But he killed himself in 



* The station of Dr. Dohm, at Naples, is of a different character, and was 

 not thea in working order. 



