LOUIS AGASSIZ 115 



Before peace had come, a wholly new 

 scientific scheme took Agassiz out of the 

 country for a time. In the winter of 

 1865 his health was such that a vacation 

 and a change of scene were imperative. 

 He proposed to spend some months 

 quietly with his wife in Eio de Janeiro. 

 Toward Brazil he was drawn by a life- 

 long desire ; for with the longing for 

 wider knowledge of the globe and the 

 still unquenched thirst for travel in 

 strange regions there mingled a special 

 personal wish to meet in their own 

 waters those fishes of Spix to whom he 

 owed his introduction to the scientific 

 world. His plan for a complete rest 

 was characteristically transformed in 

 the twinkling of an eye by a chance 

 meeting with Mr. Nathaniel Thayer, a 

 wealthy and public-spirited Bostonian, 

 who offered to make the journey a scien- 

 tific expedition by paying the expenses 

 of six assistants. "It was so simply said, 

 and seemed to me so great a boon, that 



