ALEXANDER AGASSIZ MAYER. 451 



bryologists who have devoted themselves to the observation of marine 

 animals, but histology was wholly neglected by him. Nor did he 

 ever take part in that stirring discussion of Darwinism which en- 

 grossed the attention of all of his contemporaries. It would be 

 unfair to say that he did not believe in evolution, but the truth is 

 that he was but little interested in the speculative side of science, 

 "excepting in so far as its deductions could be based upon observa- 

 tions of facts. In later life he came to regard the labors of the 

 physiologist and of the laboratory experimenters upon the reactions 

 of animals as beyond the scope of zoology. 



But the walls of the museum and problems of zoology were too 

 narrow a bound for such a genius of activity as Alexander Agassiz ; 

 moreover, he was poor and he required funds for the prosecution and 

 publication of his work in science, and thus in 1865 he engaged in 

 coal mining in Pennsylvania, and in the following year he tempo- 

 rarily left the museum and became superintendent of the then un- 

 profitable Calumet copper mine on the southern shore of Lake Supe- 

 rior, and in 1867 he united the Calumet with the adjacent Hecla 

 mine, calling the com.bined property the Calumet and Hecla. It is 

 due more to him than to any other man that this mine has produced 

 the largest profits ever divided by any incorporated mining company, 

 for the dividends up to December 31, 1907, amounted to $105,850,000. 

 From the first days of his leadership in its affairs the company ex- 

 celled all other mines in the introduction of heavy machinery and 

 modern methods. Indeed, its life depended upon the development 

 of methods of mining upon a large scale, and so vastly has it grown 

 that 83,863,116 pounds of fine copper were produced in 1907. As 

 superintendent and director and afterwards as president of the com- 

 pany, Alexander Agassiz steadily pursued the policy which led to 

 this extraordinary industrial success, and out of the wealth it brought 

 him he devoted upward of $1,000,000 to forwarding the aims of the 

 museum which his father had founded, until he made it famous 

 throughout the world for its excellent publications in science. He 

 also expended large sums upon numerous scientific expeditions, the 

 results of which he published in a manner that has never been ex- 

 celled. 



To have developed the greatest copper mine in the world would 

 have taxed the entire energy of many an able man, but so extraordi- 

 nary was Alexander Agassiz's capacity for productive labor that he 

 became the sole author of 127 notable scientific works, many of them 

 large books with numerous plates and illustrations drawn by himself, 

 and he published many other minor papers. He was also the joint 

 author of 18 and the patron or inspirer of more than 100 more, 

 which were written by specialists in America, Europe, and Japan, to 

 whom he sent the collections he had gathered. 



