62 PENIKESE. 



today as they were the day they were uttered; they 

 will be as true a thousand, yes, ten thousand years 

 hence: Living truths that never die. 



Professor Agassiz lectured to us every day, and 

 sometimes two or three times a day. His sugges- 

 tions to us in our study of the Animal Kingdom and 

 upon embryology were also of the greatest interest 

 and importance. At one time he tells us: 



"We begin, today a course of lectures on the Ani- 

 mal Kingdom. To know how the knowledge was 

 obtained we must study the history of Zoology. 

 There was a time when animals were studied by their 

 external features alone, and scientists knew so little 

 about classification that they arranged their informa- 

 tion alphabetically. One of the earliest scientists to 

 which we refer today was Caspar Gessner (this should 

 doubtless have been Conrad Gesner, though it is 

 Caspar Gessner plainly in the notes taken at the time 

 the lecture was given). The first classification of 

 animals was into aquatic, aerial, and land animals. 

 Aristotle was one of our earliest and best scientists. 

 Linnaeus' Systema Natura is a marvelous work, con- 

 sidered from our greater and his lesser knowledge of 

 the subject of which he treats. The period of Cuvier 

 is as remarkable as that of Linnaeus. He introduc- 

 ed anatomy as the basis of classification, (there were 

 three editors of his Regne Animalia, in 1817, 1829, and 

 in 1834). Contemporary with him was Carl Ernest 

 von Baer. He studied embryology and arrived at 

 the same conclusions. He gave to the Animal King- 

 dom four classes. Dollinger was the founder of em- 

 bryology. He was great as a guide to further labors, 

 Baer was his pupil. Sanders' Embryology of the 

 Chick is an important work for students in embryol- 

 ogy. Ostroeicher's studies on the capillaries were 

 written under Dollinger's directions. Oken wrote 

 from suggestions made by Goethe. The elder Carus 

 and Geoffrey St. Hillaire works contained the studies 

 of homologies, the latter is now a most important 

 work for the continued advancement of Zoology- 



