322 ANNUAL REPOET SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1916. 



in biology and especially in the questions connected with the problem 

 of evolution. 



Besides, the advance of American science in these directions does 

 not date from yesterday. In the study of paleontology, which has a 

 large j)lace in the questions with which we are to concern ourselves, 

 your scholars have, for a long time, been working with activity and 

 considerable success the marvellous layers of American deposits, and 

 have drawn from them, to cite only one instance, magnificent collec- 

 tions of reptiles and mammals, which we come to admire in the mu- 

 seums on this side of the Atlantic. Here more than anywhere else 

 have been enlarged the paths opened a century ago by George Cuvier. 

 In zoology, properly speaking, the museum of comparative zoology, 

 in which I have the honor to speak at this time, justly famous in 

 Europe;, bears witness to the importance and long standing of the re- 

 sults accomplished. Louis Agassiz, more than half a century ago, 

 was one of the most eminent names of his generation. Later, when 

 the investigation of the great depths of the ocean marked an impor- 

 tant and consequent stage in the loiowledge of earth and life, Alex- 

 ander Agassiz, his son and illustrious successor, was one of the most 

 eager and skillful workers. The expeditions of the Blake and of the 

 Albatross are among those which have drawn from the deep the most 

 important and most precious materials, and their results have been 

 the most thoroughly studied. The personality of Alexander Agassiz, 

 whom I had the honor of meeting in Paris about 13 years ago, made 

 upon me a striking impression. His real laboratory w^as the ocean, 

 and he succeeded to the end of his life in maintaining an activity 

 that corresponded to its amplitude. He was truly the naturalist of 

 one of the great sides of nature. Around Louis and Alexander 

 Agassiz, the museum and the laboratory of comparative zoology of 

 Harvard College have been for a long time a center of studies of the 

 first rank. In the domain of embryology Charles S. Minot also has 

 carried on important work. But it is especially at the present mo- 

 ment that American biological science has made an amazing advance 

 which expresses itself in the excellence of publications and in the 

 results which they reveal by the number of collaborators, the activity 

 of societies, the number of laboratories, and the abundance of mate- 

 rial resources at their disposal. Here occurs a special factor, which 

 has considerable importance, the enlightened and large generosity of 

 numerous patrons. It is incontestable that men of talent find more 

 easily in America than in Europe, and especially at the age of their 

 full activity, the cooperation without which their greatest efforts are 

 to a certain extent barren. Now, at the point to which we have ar- 

 rived, the greater part of scientific problems demands the exercise of 

 considerable pecuniary resources and of collaborators of various ca- 



