YI. 



OF the scientific writings which Ag- 

 assiz poured out from Neuchatel, the 

 greatest and most important was his im- 

 mense work on Fossil Fishes. From 

 1833 to 1843 this was issued, plates and 

 text not always keeping pace, and 

 monographs on special fauna following 

 as an appendix. It offered a wholly 

 new classification of fishes, making the 

 nature of their scales of prime impor- 

 tance, and thus facilitating the identifi- 

 cation of fossil fragments. Of course, 

 this in itself is only a minor aim ; but 

 Agassiz's fine " zoological tact" made 

 him recognise those differences which 

 accompany other differences through- 

 out the whole creature, and indicate the 

 really natural classification. How pro- 

 found was his knowledge of the subject 

 is illustrated by the anecdote of his 

 constructing from a single scale a fish 

 such as might belong to strata where no 



