282 LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



Agassiz was now driving all his steeds 

 abreast. Beside his duties as professor, he 

 was printing at the same time his " Fossil 

 Fishes/' his " Fresh-Water Fishes," and his in- 

 vestigations on fossil Echinoderms and Mol- 

 lusks, — the illustrations for all these various 

 works being under his daily supervision. The 

 execution of these plates, under M. Nicolet's 

 care, was admirable for the period. Professor 

 Arnold Guyot, in his memoir of Agassiz, says 

 of the plates for the " Fresh-Water Fishes " : 

 " We wonder at their beauty, and at their per- 

 fection of color and outline, when we remem- 

 ber that they were almost the first essays of 

 the newly - invented art of lithochromy, pro- 

 duced at a time when France and Belgium 

 were showering rewards on very inferior work 

 of the kind, as the foremost specimens of pro- 

 gress in the art." 



All this work could hardly be carried on 

 single handed. In 1837 M. Edouard Desor 

 joined Agassiz in Neuchatel, and became for 

 many years his intimate associate in scientific 

 labors. A year or two later M. Charles Vogt 

 also united himself to the band of investiga- 

 tors and artists who had clustered about Agas- 

 siz as their central force. M. Ernest Favre 

 says of this period of his life : " He displayed 



