38 



Biology in America 



While these surveys were primarily topographical and 

 geological in purpose, they were usually accompanied by 

 naturalists, whose duty it was to investigate and report upon 

 the wild life, both plant and animal, of the region visited, and 

 to them much of our knowledge of the natural history of the 

 United States is due. 



Of prime importance in the work of these naturalists were 

 the discoveries of the paliEontologists. The western plains 

 and mountains constitute a veritable storehouse of buried 

 treasure, and the pick and shovel of the paUeontologist un- 

 covered here a large part of the material for writing the 

 history of ancient life. 



These were days too when it was 

 lint impossible for one man to cover 

 an extensive field of science. Tlius 

 we find the elder Agassiz equally 

 famed as a geologist and zoologist, 

 and Dana, the noted geologist, i)ro- 

 tVssor at Yale from 1850 to 1890, 

 writing a monumental work on the 

 Z()oi)hytes and Crustacea of the 

 Wilkes Exploring Expedition ; Cope, 

 master not onl}' of vertebrate 

 palaeontology but of modern fishes, 

 am])hibia and reptiles as well, and 

 Lcidy, botanist, mineralogist, geolo- 

 gist, paleontologist, parasitologist, 

 protozoologist and comparative 

 anatomist. 



A notable event in American 

 science was the advent of Louis 

 Agassiz in 1846. Born in 1807 at the little town of Motiers in 

 Switzerland, the son of a clergyman, he early displayed that 

 love of natural history, which made him famous. Champion 

 fencer and jolly comrade, as well as gifted student, his uni- 

 versity days at Zurich, Heidelberg and Munich found him a 

 leader among his fellows and his room in Munich dubbed 

 by them "The Little Academy." His scientific work early 

 attracted the attention of Humboldt and Cuvier, who gave 

 him all possible assistance in his career. While professor 

 of natural history in the University of Neuchatel, Agassiz 

 gained world wide fame by his studies in zoology, palaeon- 

 tology, and especially on the glaciers of the Alps. In 1846 he 

 came to America, where he remained until his death in 1873. 

 During most of this time he was professor of natural history 

 at Harvard, where he gathered about him a group of men and 



Louis Agassiz 

 From Popular Science Moiitlily 



Copy furnished ty Con/rod 

 Lantern Slide Company, 

 Cliicago. 



