260 LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



iu carrying out Ms design. The illustrious naturalist immediately prof- 

 ited by these resources. He constructed large laboratories provided 

 with aquaria and other arrangements necessary for this kind of research. 

 The upper story of the building contained fifty-eight rooms for the lodg- 

 ing of the naturalists. Every effort was made to hasten the execution 

 of the plan. The consequent increase of fatigue exhausted him. On 

 the 2d of December, 1873, he gave a public address to the Agricultural 

 Association of Massachusetts. He was in his laboratory for several 

 days after, but was attacked on the 6th of December by weakness, which 

 forced him to return home. He went to his bed, which he never left 

 again, and expired on the 14th of December of a iJuralysis of the organs 

 of respiration. 



The Academy of Sciences, of Paris, had a few months before nomi- 

 nated him foreign associate member. 



'^For a long time," wrote Professor Silliman, who had been one of his 

 best friends since his arriv^al in the country, "have we dreaded the sad , 

 event which we now record. For many years the splendid physique of 

 Agassiz manifested signs that his prodigious labors were overcoming 

 his elasticity. His herculean strength, which made fatigue of body 

 or mind unknown to him, yielded to the severer tax of the American 

 climate and the incessant growing demands upon him from every source. 

 His life and strength were renewed by his long voyage to San Francisco 

 in the Hassler ; but both he and his friends recognized the fact that to 

 lahor with his former activity was impossible and forbidden. Yet to live, 

 was for him unavoidably to labor ; and to die in the harness rather than 

 to live after the x)ower to serve his fellow-men was i)assed — his aspira- 

 tion."* 



The death of the great naturalist, to whom this noble sentiment could 

 be justly attributed, was a national calamity. An immense cortege 

 formed by deputations from several cities, the Vice-President of the 

 United States, the authorities of the State of Massachusetts, delegates 

 from universities, academies, and learned societies, his numerous pupils 

 and assistants, and a large concourse of citizens accomi)anied Agassiz 

 to his last home. 



A bowlder from the glacier of the Aar, upon which is engraved his 

 name, serves as a monument to him and recalls to those who visit it 

 his native country and one of the great interests of his life. 



The prodigious capacity of Agassiz, his exceptional talent for observa- 

 tion, the facility with which he made himself familiar with all questions 

 and with which he attacked the most diverse subjects, the great intel- 

 lectual movement he developed wherever he lived, the value of his own 

 researches, have made his name one of the greatest in contemporary 

 science. He has been the object, both while living and even after his 

 death, of violent and sometimes coarse attacks : calumny has not spared 

 him. But in every case it is not he who has been most injured. Un- 



*Amer. Jour. Science, 1874, vol. vii, p. 80. 



