WOMEN IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES 255 



But much as the women just named deserve recognition 

 for their achievements in the various branches of science to 

 which they have severally devoted themselves, the one who 

 will always be specially remembered, not only for her val- 

 uable contributions to divers branches of natural science, 

 but also for her labors in behalf of higher female education 

 particularly as president of Radcliffe College is Mrs. 

 Elizabeth Gary Agassiz, the wife of the celebrated Swiss- 

 American naturalist, who gave such an impetus to the 

 study of natural science in the United States, and whose 

 influence on the general advancement of science in all its 

 departments has proved so enduring and so far-reaching. 

 As an inspirer of and collaborator with her gifted husband, 

 Mrs. Agassiz deserves a large page in the annals of science, 

 while as an enthusiastic student of nature and as one who 

 communicated her enthusiasm to her students, and at the 

 same time held up before them the highest ideals of woman- 

 hood, she is sure of a portion of that immortality which has 

 been decreed to her illustrious life-partner, Jean Louis 

 Agassiz. 



This chapter would not be complete without some refer- 

 ence to that large class of women travelers who, directly 

 or indirectly, have contributed so much to the advancement 

 of the natural sciences. The gifted Roumanian writer and 

 traveler, Princess Helena Kolzoff Massalsky, better known 

 under her pseudonym, Doria d'Istria, somewhere ex- 

 presses the opinion that a woman traveler admirably sup- 

 plements the scientific work of the male explorer by bring- 

 ing to it aptitudes that the latter does not possess. For she 

 notes many things in nature, as well as in the national life 

 and popular customs of the countries which she traverses, 

 which escape the more hebetudinous perceptions of men, 

 and thus a vast field, that would otherwise remain un- 

 known, is opened to observation and critical study. 



One of the most noted travelers of her sex in the nine- 

 teenth century was the famous Ida Pfeiffer, of Austria. 



