102 FOUNDERS OF OCEANOGRAPHY 



Agassiz himself, talking of these days, said : "I kept 

 always one and sometimes two artists in my pay ; it was 

 not easy, with an allowance of $250 (£50) a year, but they 

 were even poorer than I, and so we managed to get along 

 together. My microscope I had earned by writing." In 

 this way he took both a Ph.D. and an M.D. degree, and at the 

 same time produced important treatises on both fresh-water 

 and fossil fishes, which brought him into correspondence 

 with the great French comparative anatomist Cuvier, with 

 Humboldt and others. 



In 1832, when twenty-five years of age, he was appointed 

 to a newly established Chair of Natural History at Neuchatel, 

 the salary of which was about £64 a year ! On this, the 

 following year he married the sister of one of his fellow- 

 students, and his wife, we are told, made some of the best 

 drawings which illustrate his celebrated work on fossil 

 fishes. His grandson, G. R. Agassiz,^ writes : " The salary of 

 Louis Agassiz was entirely insufficient to support his family 

 and pubUsh his scientific works. By 1846 he had exhausted 

 the resources of his relatives, friends, and, indeed, the entire 

 little community of Neuchatel, who came generously to his 

 assistance. He gladly, therefore, accepted a subsidy from 

 the Prussian Crown, obtained through the influence of 

 Humboldt, to make a scientific exploration in the United 

 States." This was the turning-point of his life, and opened 

 up a career of extraordinary success. Previous to migrating 

 to the United States, he had, however, made important visits 

 to Paris, where he was befriended by the great comparative 

 anatomist, Cuvier, then nearing the end of his career, and 

 Humboldt, the great traveller ; and to England, where he 

 met Lyell, Buckland, Sedgwick, and other geologists, and 

 incidentally received a grant from the British Association 

 towards the expenses of the interesting work which he, with 

 some of his friends and students, had started on the nature, 



^ Letters and Recollections of Alexander Agassiz, edited by 

 G. R. Agassiz, London, 1913. 



