LOUIS AGASSIZ 105 



was at work upon the Forth American 

 Testudinata, turtles rained in upon him 

 from every point of the compass. Even 

 the cases, jars, and alcohol necessary for 

 such collections were of great value. A 

 rickety old shanty on the river-bank was 

 offered by Harvard for storage, and 

 afterward a better wooden building on 

 the college grounds, with four hundred 

 dollars a year for the cost of keeping the 

 specimens in good condition. This was 

 good in so far as it s&ved Agassiz four 

 hundred dollars a year, but the cost of 

 preservation was far greater than this; 

 and in 1850 twelve thousand dollars was 

 raised by private subscription to pur- 

 chase the collections and secure them 

 for Cambridge. "This gave him back 

 in part the sum he had already spent 

 upon them, and which he was more than 

 ready to spend again in their mainte- y 

 nance and increase." 



So matters stood when one of the high- 

 est zoological positions in the world was 



