484 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



nor from a single pair. The races of men, in their natural dis- 

 tribution, cover the same ground as the zoological provinces, 

 and he believes there is every reason to suppose that these 

 races originally appeared as nations in the regions they now 

 occupy. 



In the spring of 1850 Agassiz married Elizabeth Cabot Gary, 

 daughter of Thomas Graves Gary, of Boston. This marriage 

 bound him still more closely to America, and enabled him to 

 give his children a home here. He accordingly sent for his 

 daughters, his son, then thirteen years old, having joined him 

 the summer before. 



Being commissioned by Mr. Bache, the Superintendent of 

 the Coast Survey, to investigate the nature of the Florida 

 keys and reefs, and the channels dividing them, as also their 

 relation to the hummocks and everglades of the mainland, he 

 spent about two months in the winter of i85o-*5i in this work. 

 From his report the Coast Survey derived much valuable infor- 

 mation concerning the maintenance of channels, and the plac- 

 ing of signals, and of foundations for lighthouses. In the fol- 

 lowing winter he entered upon an appointment as professor at 

 the Medical College in Charleston, S. C. His course of lectures 

 there occupied the winter months between his autumn and 

 spring courses in Cambridge and relieved him from the neces- 

 sity of travelling about to lecture in different cities, which had 

 already somewhat taxed his health. It was at the end of his 

 first winter in Charleston that news came of the award of the 

 Cuvierian prize to him for his Fossil Fishes. During part of 

 his second winter in Charleston he was dangerously sick with 

 a fever, and in the following spring he resigned his professor- 

 ship. In the winter of i854-*55 he resumed his public lectures, 

 but it became evident in the spring that he must give up this 

 practice. 



Some other means of supplementing his scanty salary must 

 be found, and at this juncture his wife and daughters proposed 

 to open a girls' school. Agassiz not only approved the plan, 

 but entered into it himself, and was an important factor in the 

 splendid success that it enjoyed for its eight years of existence. 

 The adverse influence of the civil war, added to the fact that 

 the income from it was no longer needed, brought it to a close 

 in 1863. 



Ever since his arrival in America, Agassiz had been collect- 



