102 EMINENT NATURALISTS. 



works, and to whose recommendation he in part owed 

 the brilliant reception he met with in America. 



With his residence in Paris the student life of 

 Agassiz may be said to have ended. He was about 

 to begin a profession which was one day to become 

 an engrossing one, and one never to be relinquished — 

 the profession of a teacher. In 1832 he applied to 

 M. Louis Coulon to obtain for him a position as 

 professor of natural history in the Gymnasium of 

 Neufchatel. No such chair then existed ; but M. 

 Coulon raised monej^ enough to guarantee for three 

 years a salary of 2,000 francs, and the new professor 

 was duly installed, already planning the best way 

 of laying out so considerable an annual sum as £80. 

 He found no museum there, and for lack of a lecture- 

 room was obliged to give his course in a hall of the 

 town-house. But this ill-provided teacher soon brought 

 his branch to overshadow all others in the Gymnasium. 

 From all parts of Switzerland came young and talented 

 pupils and friends of nature thither and gathered 

 round Agassiz, who understood how to inspire them 

 with his great ideas. 



He sent for the specimens he had amassed in Ger- 

 many, and with ceaseless activity added fresh ones, until 

 a tolerable collection was ready for display and study. 

 Then, with the confidence of a man having abundant 

 resources in money and power, he proceeded to surround 

 himself with the appliances of a great scientific centre, 

 and to enter on a series of original investigations which 

 might well have taxed the powers of three able men. 



He had constantly employed two artists, "Weber and 



