324 LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



on zoology, and the philosophy of nature. Even 

 the children were delighted to gather and be told 

 how lakes, springs, rivers, and valleys are formed. 



" When it was impossible to give the lessons out- 

 of-doors, the children were gathered around a large 

 table, where each one had before him or her the 

 specimens of the day, sometimes stones and fossils, 

 sometimes flowers, fruits, or dried plants. . . . 

 When the talk was of tropical or distant countries, 

 pains were taken to procure characteristic speci- 

 mens, and the children were introduced to dates, 

 bananas, cocoa-nuts, and other fruits, not to be 

 easily obtained in those days in a small inland 

 town. They, of course, concluded the lesson by 

 eating the specimen, a practical illustration which 

 they greatly enjoyed." 



Three months after his settlement at Neuchatel, 

 where eighty louis had been guaranteed to him for ' 

 three years, he was invited to Heidelberg, to suc- 

 ceed his former professor, Leuckart, in zoology. 

 He would receive a salary of five hundred florins^ 

 besides about fifteen hundred gulden for lectures 

 and literary work. He declined the honor, because 

 he wished more time to devote to his writing. The 

 following year Neuchatel purchased his collections 

 in natural history, thus affording him some pecu 

 niary aid in his work. 



A serious misfortune now threatened him in the 

 loss of sight. Having injured his eyes by micro- 

 scopic work, for several months he was shut up in 

 a dark room, practising the study of his fossils by 



