7^4 LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



fifty thousand dollars to establish a Museum of Comparative Zoology; and 

 his nephew, Mr. William Gray, scrupulously following his uncle's inclina- 

 tions, selected Harvard College as the proper institution. During the fol- 

 lowing year, a committee of gentlemen raised more than seventy thousand 

 dollars, and the State gave one hundred thousand. Of this institution 

 Agassiz became the presiding spirit. 



In the summer of 1865, Professor Agassiz extended his American re- 

 searches to the Southern Continent, in an expeJition at the head of a chosen 

 party of assistants, in an exploration of Brazil, where he devoted eighteen 

 months to a thorough survey of the valley of the Amazon and other por- 

 tions of the country. An account of this tour, in a volume entitled "A 

 Journey to Brazil," from the pen of Mrs. Agassiz, a devoted companion to 

 her husband in his scientific studies, was published in 1S67. He subse- 

 quently was engaged in a like exhaustive study of the regions of the United 

 States bordering on the Pacific ; and, in 1872, in a voyage of scientific observa- 

 tion on the western shores of South America. In these expeditions he was 

 accompanied by a corps of pupils devoted to natural history, and vast 

 materials were gathered by him, to be added to the collections of animals, 

 plants, and fossils, of which he undertook the classification and preservation, 

 as curator of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, in connection with his 

 Professorship at Cambridge. 



The Brazilian expedition of 1865 brought home barrels and cases by the 

 hundred, and so did the Hassler expedition of 1871. Nor were these half, 

 for the incessant eagerness of the director sought original collections from 

 all parts of the world, some by exchange and some by purchase. In 1870 

 the building was increased to double its former capacity, but it does not afford 

 room to-day for the arrangement of the collections stored in it. When the 

 first section of the edifice was finished, fire-proof and fairly fitted with shelves 

 and cases, a grand moving took place, and the motley boxes and bottles were 

 carried or carted in all haste to the new quarters. 



While pursuing his career of original study at Cambridge and giving to 

 the public the result of his observations in his series of philosophical lectures 

 before the Museum of Comparative Zoology, involving original and elab- 

 orate constructions of animal life, the sphere of his investigations was en- 

 larged in the summer of 1873 by the gift of Mr. John Anderson, a gentleman 

 of Massachusetts, of Penikese Island, off the coast of New England. Thi.s 

 piece of land, valued at one hundred thousand dollars, was presented to him 

 for the establishment of a school of Investigation in Natural History, with 

 an additional gift in money of fifty thousand dollars to carry out the design. 



