192 PROCEEDINGS OF THE OHIO ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



insuperable difficulties. Lesquereux was one of that famous trio 

 of naturalists to whom American science is so enormously in- 

 debted, the other two being Arnold Guyot and Louis Agassiz. 

 The story of his life is a romance such as one expects to find 

 only in the pages of an imaginative novelist. His ancestors were 

 Huguenots who sought refuge and religious liberty in Switzer- 

 land where his father employed four or five workmen in a small 

 factory for the manufacture of watch springs. His mother, a 

 cultivated woman and a lover of learning urged him to become 

 a scholar, and when thirteen years of age, he was sent to 

 Xeuchatel to begin his academic career. Here he had as school 

 mates Arnold Guyot and August Agassiz, a younger brother of 

 Louis Agassiz, who was then continuing his studies in Germany. 

 The training young Lesquereux received at Xeuchatel was of 

 the rigorous kind then in vogue everywhere, consisting mostly 

 of Latin, Greek, mathematics and philosophy, with not a word 

 of natural science. Having developed a great fondness for learn- 

 ing at the age of twenty years he resolved to continue his studies 

 at the German Universities. For this, however, he must first 

 earn money and the easiest way to do this was to teach the 

 French language in German families. 



Even when an old man, after years of almost complete iso- 

 lation from his fellows, by reason of his great affliction, he was 

 remarkable for his cheerful disposition, unlimited patience and 

 charming manners. It is not strange then that at twenty, hand- 

 some, a lover of music and an accomplished scholar, he had no 

 difficulty in finding clients. He became a tutor in a noble 

 family in the city of Eisenach, with the privilege of doing a 

 certain amount of teaching in other families. Among these was 

 that of a distinguished general of noble birth, an attache at the 

 Court of the Duke of Saxe Weimer. His pupil there was the 

 beautiful and highly accomplished daughter of the general, 

 Baroness Sophia, who made extraordinary progress in learning 

 to speak the French language. Before the end of the year teacher 

 and pupil understood each other so well that young Lesquereux 

 was inspired with courage to ask the hand of the daughter in 

 marriage. , 



