M. Agassis, Recherches sur les Poissons Fossiles, 25 1 



readers the substance of its contents, which are indeed highly creditable to the 

 zeal of the savans of Great Britain generally, and of this city in particular. 



M. Agassiz, having already described and caused to be figured, almost 

 six hundred species of fossil fish, and conceiving his work to be very far 

 advanced, if not almost completed, determined to visit the museums of this 

 country. He did so during the summer of 1834, and among their contents 

 lie discovered so many new species and genera, that it became evident that 

 his labours, so far from being nearly completed, had in truth scarcely 

 commenced. He discovered that there were vast geological tracts, con- 

 taining fossil treasures hitherto uidieard of, and tiiat there existed many 

 new specimens, from formations, with the fossils of wliicli lie had conceived 

 himself to be perfectly acquainted. 



The number of new species determined by M. i\gassiz, during his visit 

 to England, was about two hundred and fifty, from various localities and 

 various geological formations, and more especially from those forma- 

 tions whose geological age being well determined in England, permitted 

 them to furnish points of comparison witii others on the Continent, thus 

 confirming tlie appreciable relations between species of the same epoch, 

 and testifying the justice of the general results ])reviously announced by 

 the autiior. 



In enumerating the different sources, whence he derived his information, 

 M. Agassiz mentions the Geological Society, and his observations are so 

 just and pertinent that we shall translate them at length. 



" The Geological Society of London is one of those institutions, which, established 

 on the most liberal basis, favours l)y its influence every thing that can contribute, 

 even indirectly, to the progress of science. To the liberal and enlarged views of 

 the president and council of this body, I owe more particularly the having been able 

 to achieve in London a work, which, without the support and countenance of so 

 considerable a society, would have l)een impossible, and which stands without pre- 

 cedent in the history of the natural sciences, rinding scattered over the three king- 

 doni> a prodigious quantity of new and important evidence for my work, I was 

 cnibarassed liowto select from it the most valuable portion : it appeared to me to he 

 almost impossible, in small towns or retired parts of the country, to have the more 

 imiiortant of the specimens I found there drawn sufficiently well, to enable me to 

 have them rccopied for the plates of my ' Researclics.' Uut such is the liberality 

 of scientific men in England, that all those whose collections I have examined, and 

 even the directors of all the public museums tliat I have visited, (amounting, private 

 and public, to sixty-three) havci)ermitted me to remove every specimen that seemed 

 likely to throw any new light upon fossil iciilhyology. At the request of J'rofessor 

 Hucklanil, Mr. (ireenougb the now i)resident of the Geological Society, and Messrs. 

 Scdgewick, Murchison, and Lyall, have in addition i)rociircd ftir me the assent of 

 the society to the reposition of all these treasures in a room at Somersiet llour.e. Mr. 

 Lonsdale, the curator of the society's collection, has there aided me in arranging 

 the two thousand specimens of fossil fish referred to, and that I bad selected out of 

 about five thousand specimens, whilst travelling over England and a part of Scot- 

 land and Ireland. Such a favour is invaluable, especially when the difficulty is borne 

 in mind of transporting objects so fragile, and whose loss would be irreparable. 



