BENJAMIN PEIRCE. 443 



1876. Recent Corals from Tilibiohe, Peru. By Alexander Agassiz and L. F. 



Pourtales. pp. 4. 1 plate. March, 187G. 

 1878. Reports on the Dredging Operations U. S. Coast Survey Steamer 



" Blake." II. Echini. By A. Agassiz. — Corals and Crinoids. By 



L. F. Pourtales. — Ophiurans. By T. Lyman. — pp. 58. 11 plates. 



December, IJ, 1878. 

 1880. Report on the Results of Dredging, etc. VI. Report on the Corals 



and Antipatharia. By L. F. Pourtales. pp. 26. 3 plates. February, 



1880. 

 1880. Report on the Florida Reefs. By Louis Agassiz. Accompanied by 



Illustrations of Florida Corals, from drawings by A. Sonrel, Burkhardt, 



A. Agassiz, and Uoctter. With an Explanation of the Plates, by L. 



F. Pourtales. Published by permission of A. D. Bache and Carlile 



P. Patterson, Superintendent of the U. S. Coast Survey, pp. 61. 



23 plates. May, 1880. 

 In Appleton's Encyclopi^dia the following articles : — 



Atlantic Ocean, Vol. II. — Dredging (Deep-Sea), Vol. VI. — Galapagos, Vol. 

 VIL — Lidian Ocean, Vol. IX. — Juan Fernandez, Vol. IX. — Magel- 

 lan, Straits of. Vol. X. — Mediterranean Sea, Vol. XI. — Pacific Ocean, 

 Vol. XIL — Polar Seas (geography), Vol. XIII. 



BENJAMIN PEIRCE. 



Benjamin Peirce was born in Salem, Mass., on the 4th day of 

 April, 1809, and he died at Cambridge, on the Gth day of October, 

 1880. 



In his early years he had the good fortune to come under the in- 

 fluence of Doctor Nathaniel Bowditch. It is said that their first ac- 

 quaintance was made while Doctor Bowditch's son IngersoU and young 

 Peirce were schoolmates. IngersoU showed his comrade a solution 

 which his father had prepared of a problem that the boys had been at 

 work upon. Some error, real or conceived, was pointed out in the 

 work, which was reported by IngersoU to his father. " Bring me 

 that boy who corrects my mathematics ! " was the invitation to an ac- 

 quaintance, the importance of which in Professor Peirce's own esti- 

 mation is told in the dedication, more than thirty years later, of his 

 " Analytic Mechanics " " to the cherished and revered memory of 

 my Master in Science, Nathaniel Bowditch, the father of American 

 Geometry." 



Peirce entered Harvard College in 1825. As Doctor Bowditch 

 was now in Boston, having removed from Salem in 1823, and was 

 preparing the first volume of his translation of Laplace's '" Mecanique 

 Celeste" for the press, it followed almost as a matter of course that 

 the college student was more influenced in his studies by him than by 



