490 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 



laboratory was in operation. The rude shed on the shore and 

 the small wooden building at Cambridge developed under his 

 hand into the Museum of Zoology, — if not as we see it now, 

 yet into one of the foremost collections. Who can say what 

 it would have been if his plans and ideas had obtained full 

 recognition, and " expenditure " had seemed to the trustees, 

 as it seemed to him, " the best investment," or if efficient filial 

 aid, not then to be dreamed of, had not given solid realization 

 to the high paternal aspirations ! In like manner grew large 

 under his hand the Brazilian exploration so generously pro- 

 vided for by a Boston citizen and fostered by an enlightened 

 emperor ; and on a similar scale was planned, and partly car- 

 ried out, the " Contributions to the Natural History of the 

 United States," as the imperial quarto work was modestly en- 

 titled, which was to be published " at the rate of one volume 

 a year, each volume to contain about three hundred pages and 

 twenty plates," with simple reliance upon a popular subscrip- 

 tion ; — and so, indeed, of everything which this large-minded 

 man undertook. 



While Agassiz thus was a magnanimous man, in the literal 

 as well as the accepted meaning of the word, he was also, as 

 we have seen, a truly fortunate one. Honorable assistance 

 came to him at critical moments, such as the delicate gift 

 from Humboldt at Paris, which perhaps saved him to science ; 

 such as the Wollaston prize from the Geological Society in 

 1834, when he was struggling for the means of carrying on 

 the Fossil Fishes. The remainder of the deficit of this under- 

 taking he was able to make up from his earliest earnings in 

 America. For the rest, we all know how almost everything 

 he desired — and he wanted nothing except for science — was 

 cheerfully supplied to his hand by admiring givers. Those 

 who knew the man during the twenty-seven years of his 

 American life can quite understand the contagious enthusiasm 

 and confidence which he evoked. The impression will in 

 some degree be transmitted by these pleasant and timely vol- 

 umes, which should make the leading lines of the life of 

 Agassiz clear to the newer generation, and deepen them in 

 the memory of an older one. 



