190 LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



saw the sea for the first time. He wrote 

 home : " For five days we skirted the coast 

 from Havre to Dieppe ; at last I have looked 

 upon the sea and its riches. From this ex- 

 cursion of a few days, which I had almost 

 despaired of making, I bring back new ideas, 

 more comprehensive views, and a more accu- 

 rate knowledge of the great phenomena pre- 

 sented by the ocean in its vast expanse." 



Meanwhile the hope he had always enter- 

 tained of finding a professorship of natural 

 history in his own country was ripening into 

 a definite project. His first letter on this 

 subject to M. Louis Coulon, himself a well- 

 known naturalist, and afterward one of his 

 warmest friends in Neuchatel, must have been 

 written just before he received from Hum- 

 boldt the note of the same date, which extri- 

 cated him from his pecuniary embarrassment. 



AGASSIZ TO LOUIS COULON. 



PARIS, March 27, 1832. 



. . . When I had the pleasure of seeing 

 you last summer I several times expressed my 

 strong desire to establish myself near you, and 

 my intention of taking some steps toward ob- 

 taining the professorship of natural history 

 to be founded in your Lyceum. The matter 



