CHAPTER VI 



THE VOYAGE OF THE HASSLER 



1871-1872 



BY the late autumn of 1870 Agassiz's health was in 

 suflSciently good condition to admit of his accepting 

 a proposal from Dr. Benjamin Peirce, the Superintendent 

 of the Coast Survey, to form an expedition for deep-sea 

 dredging, which sailed on December 4 of the next year on 

 the Hassler, a surveying steamer bound for California. 

 With him Agassiz had one of his students from the Mu- 

 seum, two other naturalists — the Count de Pourtales and 

 Dr. Franz Steindachner, — Dr. Thomas Hill, the ex-pres- 

 ident of Harvard University, and Mrs. Agassiz. Captain 

 Johnson, the commander of the vessel, and Mrs. Johnson, 

 as well as the oflficers, took so keen an interest in the pur- 

 poses of the expedition that they added greatly to the pleas- 

 ure of the voyage. The course of the Hassler was directed 

 first to the West Indies, from there to Rio de Janeiro, 

 Monte Video, and the Gulf of Mathias, thence to the 

 Straits of Magellan, where manifold beautiful harbors of- 

 fered anchorages, and afterward up the Patagonian coast 

 to Concepcion Bay, where she lay at Talcahuana for re- 

 pairs, while Agassiz and Mrs. Agassiz went by land to 

 Santiago and Valparaiso; here they were met by the Hassler, 

 which proceeded to Callao on the Peruvian coast, then to 

 the Galapagos, and ended her voyage by way of Panama 

 and San Diego at San Francisco, entering the Golden Gate 

 in August, 1872. Under Agassiz's direction Mrs. Agassiz 



