LOUIS AGASSIZ 101 



became a leader of a body, called the " Small Academy," of 

 the more intellectual of his fellow-students, several of whom 

 became distinguished scientific men afterwards, but who at 

 that time were known in their own society by nicknames such 

 as " MoUuscus," *' Cyprinus," '' Rhubarb," etc. While still 

 a student he started original investigations on the fresh- 

 water fishes of Central Europe and on the fishes collected by 

 Martins and Spix in Brazil ; and before he was twenty years 

 of age he had already engaged two young artists to draw his 

 specimens and another assistant to help him in dissecting 

 them, and he kept up that practice throughout all his earlier 

 struggling years as a student and a young scientific man in 

 Europe. One of his artists, called Dinkel, who remained 

 with him for about sixteen years, generally shared his room, 

 and we are told that they used the same vessel to make their 

 coffee in the morning, to contain specimens in process of 

 maceration as skeletons during the remainder of the day, 

 and then, being temporarily emptied of its scientific contents, 

 to make tea in for their evening meal. Professor Agassiz's 

 widow, writing of these early days, says : ^ " He was of frugal 

 personal habits ; at this very time, when he was keeping 

 two or three artists on his slender means, he made his own 

 breakfast in his room, and dined for a few cents a day at the 

 cheapest eating-houses. But where science was concerned, 

 the only economy he recognized, either in youth or old age, 

 was that of an expenditure as bold as it was carefully 

 considered." On one vacation, when he proposed to come 

 home to the small Swiss parsonage, at that time much 

 overcrowded because of the impending marriage of one of his 

 sisters, he wrote telling them of all the things he was going to 

 bring with him for work during the vacation, collections and 

 so on, including one of his artists, to which his father writes 

 back : " By all means bring them all except your painter.'' 

 But when he arrived the painter was with him, and had to 

 be accommodated somehow. 



^ Louis Agassiz, edited by Elizabeth Gary Agassiz, London, 1885. 



