ALEXANDER AGASSIZ MAYER. 459 



five volumes of the " Memoirs " had been completed, and yet these 

 publications had been appearing in parts for 14 and 13 years, respec- 

 tively. The reports upon the great collections gathered by Alexan- 

 der Agassiz's expeditions gave these museum publications an enor- 

 mous impetus, so that at the time of his death in 1910 the fifty- fourth 

 volume of the " Bulletin " and the fortieth of the " Memoirs " were 

 appearing. 



Alexander Agassiz realized that the Government had always failed 

 to provide adequately for the publication of the results of its many 

 exi^lorations, and thus he himself assumed the direction and defrayed 

 the entire expense of all of the publications resulting from expedi- 

 tions under Government auspices of which he was the scientific di- 

 rector. Xo results of explorations have been more appropriately 

 published or better illustrated than those under the auspices of 

 Alexander Agassiz. 



Alexander Agassiz did most wisely also in sending the various col- 

 lections not only to specialists in America, but to the leading students 

 in Europe and Japan, thus securing the cooperation of those best 

 competent to pronounce upon them. 



During the first cruise of the Blake he discovered that the prevail- 

 ing winds blowing over the Gulf Stream caused a marked concentra- 

 tion of floating life upon its western edge, and that this aggregation 

 was nowhere richer than at the Tortugas, Fla. Accordingly, under 

 Government auspices he visited the Tortugas in March and April., 

 1881, with Dr. J. W. Fewkes as his assistant. Although greatly hin- 

 dered by stormy weather, he succeeded in securing a large collection 

 of marine animals, notably the Porpitidaj and Velellidse, an elaborate 

 and fully illustrated account of which he published in 1883, and in 

 the same year, in the "Memoirs" of the American Academy, he 

 presented the results of his studies of the fine coral reefs of the 

 Tortugas. 



His Blake Echini appeared in 1883, and in 1888 came his last Blah? 

 publication, a general account of her three notable cruises. This 

 crowning work comes nearer to being a popular book than anything 

 he, as sole author, ever published. It is a general review of the results 

 of the Blake^ voyages between 1877 and 1880, and it appears in 

 volumes 14 and 15 of the " Bulletins " of the Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology, being illustrated by 545 maps and figures of the highest 

 artistic and scientific merit. 



It is rarely, indeed, that the results of exploration have been thus 

 summarized in a single work, and none gives a clearer idea of the 

 strange forms of the creatures that live upon the cold, dark floor of 

 the deep sea than does this one. 



The results may be significantly summarized by stating that we 

 now know more of the topography and of the animals of the depths 



