EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION xvii 



nered a tremendous array of materials of every kind, so much in 

 fact, that Harvard University had to make two buildings available 

 to him for storage alone. Even these were not sufficient, and by 1859 

 Agassiz's insatiable appetite for collecting had made necessary the 

 establishment of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. He saw his 

 collections as the primary materials with which to educate American 

 students of natural history according to the high standards of Eu- 

 ropean scholarship, but as his commitment to education grew and 

 his public activity increased, these involvements had serious intel- 

 lectual consequences. Some colleagues, while applauding his zeal 

 for collecting, thought such efforts detracted from the primary task 

 of studying the specimens themselves. Although Agassiz had pub- 

 lished a few papers describing his American researches, up to 1855 

 he had done nothing in the United States to compare with the work 

 of his European years. After the lapse of nearly a decade, he had 

 published but two books, one a textbook of joint authorship and 

 the other an account of his exploration of Lake Superior. 



Agassiz himself began to see that his labors of recent years had in- 

 terfered with intellectual effort and determined to reassert his schol- 

 arly pre-eminence. As he wrote Sir Charles Lyell in 1856, he planned 

 to devote himself henceforward to scholarly publication, and his 

 forthcoming Contributions would show the world "that I have not 

 been idle during ten years' silence." As with so many projects of the 

 past and the future, his plan for a major publication had begun on 

 a small scale and grew larger from the stimulus of his imagination. 

 It became a grandiose scheme involving many supporters and con- 

 siderable financial assistance. 



Returning from a journey to the lower South and the Mississippi 

 valley in 1853, Agassiz was thrilled as always by first-hand examina- 

 tion of nature. In this case it was the fishes typical of the Tennessee 

 and Mississippi river systems that fascinated him, and he planned 

 to publish a comprehensive Natural History of the Fishes of the 

 United States. After enlisting the cooperation of scores of amateur 

 and professional collectors and of the federal government as well, 

 Agassiz had accumulated ample materials for this purpose. Instead of 

 going ahead with his task, however, the success of his collecting enter- 

 prise impelled him to embark on an even grander quest for still more 

 specimens representative of all American natural history and to 



