CHAPTER V 



1869-1873 

 THE REVISION OF THE ECHINI 



Not long after his return from Calumet, Agassiz and 

 his small family settled for the first time in a home 

 of their own, a little house on a side street in North 

 Cambridge near Porter's Station, which combined the 

 advantages of being cheap and not too far from the 

 Museum. His first care was to reestablish his scientific 

 correspondence. As an example of the eagerness with 

 which he threw himself into his former intellectual life, 

 it may be mentioned that on November 8 he wrote 

 seventeen scientific letters, all plainly attesting his hun- 

 ger for science during the past two years of exile. One 

 of the events that most excited his interest on his return, 

 was the result of a dredging expedition the previous 

 year of the little Coast Survey Steamer Corwin off the 

 Florida coast. This opened up a new world to the marine 

 zoologist, and fired the imagination of the returning 

 wanderer from the wilds of Michigan. 



TO FRITZ MULLER 



Cambridge, Nov. 8, 1868. 

 Your letter of March, 1867, father sent up to me to 

 Lake Superior, where I was compelled by family affairs 

 to go and spend nearly two years in order to extricate 

 them from some unfortunate mining enterprises into 

 which they had become involved. Thank Heaven I am 



