638 LOUIS AGASSTZ, 



have enjoyed. Thus far, the whole number 

 of fishes known from the Amazons has 

 amounted to a little over one hundred, count- 

 ing everything that may exist from these 

 waters, in the Jardin des Plantes, the British 

 Museum, the museums of Munich, Berlin, 

 Vienna, etc. ; while I have collected and now 

 hold, in good state of preservation, fourteen 

 hundred and forty-two species, and may get 

 a few hundred more before returning to Para. 

 I have so many duplicates that I may make 

 every other museum tributary to ours, so far 

 as the fresh-water animals of Brazil are con- 

 cerned. This may seem very unimportant to 

 a statesman. But I am satisfied that it af- 

 fords a standard by which to estimate the re- 

 sources of Brazil, as they may be hereafter 

 developed. The basin of the Amazons is an- 

 other Mississippi, having a tropical climate, 

 tempered by moisture. Here is room for a 

 hundred million happy human beings. 

 Ever truly your friend, 



L. Agassiz. 



The repose of the return voyage, after six- 

 teen months of such uninterrupted work, and 

 of fresh impressions daily crowding upon each 

 other, was most grateful to Agassiz. The 



