ALEXANDER AGASSIZ MAYER. 453 



wondered at that he raised a wall between himself and the great un- 

 sympathetic world, which only those nearest to him and a few most 

 intimate scientific associates could penetrate. In early life he had 

 been buoyant in spirit, popular and beloved by all who knew him, but 

 after the sorrows of 1873 he withdrew from broader contact with the 

 world, and, while he still remained cordially intimate with a few of 

 the greatest leaders, from the rank and file of scientific men he held 

 himself far and aloof. One must always bear the fact in mind that 

 during the last 37 years of his life he was a saddened and an ill man — 

 one whose deepest love was buried and whose fondest hopes had been 

 wrecked. We must also consider that a tendency toward this reserve 

 probably came to him through inheritance from the German blood 

 of his mother's side of the house, and it may in some measure be ac- 

 counted for by the fact that English always remained a foreign 

 tongue to him, for he thought in French, and in temperament he re- 

 mained European rather than American. 



Yet among scientific men he became the greatest patron of zoology 

 our country has known. In 1910, at the time of his death, the fifty- 

 fourth volume of the " Bulletins " and the fortieth volume of the 

 " Memoirs " of the Museum of Comparative Zoology were appearing. 

 These publications had been started in 1863 and 1864, and in the 

 number of important and beautifully illustrated papers they contain 

 they have been excelled by only a few of the most active scientific 

 societies of the world ; yet the expense of producing them has largely 

 been borne by one man — Alexander Agassiz. 



In 1870-71 he visited many European museums to study specimens 

 of echini for his great work upon this group and he was also espe- 

 cially interested in the results of the English deep-sea dredging ex- 

 peditions in the Porcupine, little dreaming that he was himself to 

 become a great leader in such work. 



In 1873 when Mr. John Anderson, of New York, offered his father 

 the island of Penikese as the site for a marine biological laboratory, 

 Alexander Agassiz used all his efforts to dissuade him from its ac- 

 ceptance, but failing in this he served for the first year as an in- 

 structor and the second as superintendent of the school. He gives 

 a history of this experience in an article in 1892 in the Popular 

 Science Monthly, volume 42, page 123. Mr. Anderson's final loss of 

 interest in the laboratory and his refusal to consent to its removal to 

 Woods Hole led to its abandonment. Although Alexander Agassiz, 

 prompted by his deep interest in marine zoology, did not give up the 

 attempt to maintain the school until after an appeal for aid addressed 

 to the superintendents of public institutions and presidents of State 

 boards of education throughout the United States had met with in- 

 adequate response. Then he himself paid the expenses and the 

 Penikese School passed out of existence. 



