CHAPTER VII 



THE NEWPORT LABORATORY 



From personal knowledge of the Atlantic coast be- 

 tween Eastport and the Tortugas, Agassiz had reached 

 the conclusion that no place offered better facilities for 

 the summer study of marine animals than the vicinity 

 of Newport. This led him, in the fall of 1874, to join 

 Mr. Shaw in buying the southwest extremity of the 

 Island of Rhode Island a little peninsula of about thirty 

 acres, known, from the remains of some old earthworks, 

 as "Castle Hill." The place marks the eastern entrance 

 to Narragansett Bay, and commands a beautiful view 

 of the ocean and sound. Here during the winter of 

 1874-75, the brothers-in-law each built a house. Agassiz 

 moved into his in 1875, and it became his summer home 

 for the rest of his life. As Mrs. Louis Agassiz continued 

 to pass her summers at Nahant, Mrs. Russell, Agassiz's 

 mother-in-law, presided over his Newport establishment 

 until her death in 1888. Mr. Shaw never lived in his 

 house, which Agassiz bought some years later, when it 

 promptly burnt down. 



The moving to Newport in the spring and back to 

 Cambridge in the fall was accomplished, during his 

 visits to Calumet, by his servants, who worshiped him, 

 and never thought of leaving. Since he never would 

 discharge an old employee, an unusual number were 

 pensioned at his death. To everybody about him of the 

 humbler sort he was exceptionally considerate, often 



