LETTERS FROM BRAZIL 03 



opment. The apprehension that she expresses proved need- 

 less, for during the absence of Agassiz the Legislature of 

 Massachusetts made a generous appropriation which was 

 doubled by private subscriptions, so that accommodations 

 were provided for the valuable collections that he was 

 making in Brazil. 



The book to which Mrs. Agassiz refers in this letter is 

 Seaside Studies in Natural History, which she wrote in col- 

 laboration with Alexander Agassiz, who contributed the 

 drawings and many of the investigations, while Mrs. 

 Agassiz wrote the text with the assistance of his notes and 

 explanations. It supplies a popular scientific treatment of 

 the Marine Animals of Massachusetts Bay and was pub- 

 lished in the hope that it would meet a want often ex- 

 pressed for such a seaside manual. 



TO MISS SARAH G. GARY 



Manaos, January 8, 1866 



PEOPLE think that Agassiz has been working too hard 

 on the Amazons, and so perhaps he has; but work is 

 his life, and I am convinced that the journey would 

 not have done him half the good it has, if he had not 

 had the means of working as he has done. To have 

 seen the means of making such a wonderful collection 

 all about him and not to have been able to do it would 

 have been to him a suffering worse than that of Tan- 

 talus of old it would have been to see the promised 

 land and not to enter it. I anticipate a coming cloud. 

 Alex is alarmed at the size of the collections which 

 he says will be too expensive to take care of, and the 

 Amazons collections which he did not yet know about 



