LOUIS AGASSIZ 153 



prepare to travel through higher regions, but let medicines and 

 surgery be your parachutes." 



The secret could not be kept, and the spectacle of Agassiz at 

 twenty-one years of age making a report on the fishes of Brazil 

 to the Government, was so signal an honor that it silenced all 

 opposition. The work gave him fame, and when completed, the 

 name of Agassiz appeared upon the title-page as a Doctor of 

 Philosophy, which was soon followed by his degree of M. D. 



At twenty-three Agassiz was well-known in Europe, an author 

 and naturalist of national reputation, a position not accomplished 

 without great mental and physical effort; the details of which can- 

 not be given in a sketch so limited. It was now that Agassiz met 

 Cuvier and Von Humboldt, who both recognized the inherent 

 genius of the young man and aided him in every way possible. 

 Cuvier placed in his hands his notes on fishes, a signal honor. 

 Agassiz was delighted, but as his father had foreseen, the life of a 

 naturalist was not productive in a pecuniary sense, and in 1832 

 he possessed an income of but forty dollars a month, out of which 

 he paid his artist twenty-five, leaving him but fifteen dollars to 

 live upon. At this period, working fifteen hours a day, his only 

 regret appears to have been that he was so poor, that he did. not 

 have a suitable coat to wear when he presented letters of introduc- 

 tion. The severest privations did not sway or influence him from 

 his object which was to become the greatest teacher of science of 

 the day, and he even refused a salary of two hundred dollars per 

 annum from a journal, that desired him to edit a zoological section, 

 on the ground that he would be obliged to give up two hours a 

 day from his studies. Investigators in Psychology to-day will 

 find the following story of Agassiz of more or less interest. He 

 was working on a fish, which ultimately appeared in his Recherches 

 sur les Poissons Fossiles. One fish puzzled him; he could not 

 trace its characteristics. One night he dreamed he saw it worked 

 out in the rock; for two nights he had this dream, but in some 

 way, after the fashion of dreams, it evaded him when he awoke; 

 so on the third night he placed paper and pencil at his bedside. 

 Again he had the dream, and seizing the pencil he drew the out- 



